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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



PLAY AND RECREATION 

FOR THE OPEN COUNTRY 



BY 



HENRY S. CURTIS 

FORMER SECRETARY AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE PLAYGROUND 
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, AND SUPERVISOR OF THE PLAY- 
GROUNDS OF WASHINGTON, D.C., LECTURER ON PUBLIC 
RECREATION AND OTHER SOCIAL SUBJECTS 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HENRY S. CURTIS 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






MM -4 1914 



GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



@C!,A362771 



TO 

MY FATHER AND MOTHER 

WHOSE SYMPATHETIC INSIGHT ON A 

MICHIGAN FARM MADE POSSIBLE THE 

PLAY OF MY CHILDHOOD 



PREFACE 

I was led to undertake the preparation of this book by a 
suggestion that came to me from Dr. A. E. Winship of the 
Neiv England Journal of Education while I was lecturing and 
conducting some play demonstrations at the normal school at 
Kearney, Nebraska. The suggestions here made have since 
been tried at manynormal schools and rural teachers' institutes. 

I am much indebted to the following associations and per- 
sons for their kindness in loaning pictures for the book : 
The Playground and Recreation Association of America ; the 
Boy Scouts of America; the Camp Fire Girls ; Mr. O. H. Ben- 
son of the United States Department of Agriculture ; The Agri- 
cultural College, Stillwater, Oklahoma ; Miss Nina B. Lamkin ; 
Young Women's Christian Association, St. Louis, Missouri ; 
Mr. W. Francis Hyde, Worcester, Massachusetts ; Reverend 
Frederick Hollister, North Stonington, Connecticut ; Mr. John 
Staples, Houston, Texas ; and President John Kirk of the 

Normal School, Kirksville, Missouri. 

H. S. C. 



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in 2011 witin funding from 
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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION xiii 

The Problems of Rural Recreation 

PART ONE 

PLAY IN THE HOME AND ITS ENVIRONS 

CHAPTER I. PLAY IN THE HOME 5 

The Mother the Organizer of the Social Life of the Home. The 
Value of Play. Fireside Cheer. Music. Reading and Story- 
Telling. Toys. A Play Room for the Children. Playing Games. 
Visiting. Christmas 

CHAPTER II. PLAY IN THE DOORYARD OF THE P^ARM 
HOME 17 

Beautifying the Uooryard. A Sand Bin. A Small Slide. Swings. 
Tent or Playhouse. Croquet. Quoits. Tennis. Tether Ball and 
Volley Ball. Pets. Chickens 

CHAPTER III. SOME EXPERIENCES THAT EVERY COUN- 
TRY BOY SHOULD HAVE 25 

Hunting and Fishing. Swimming. Climbing Trees. Robbing 
the Nests of Bumble Bees. Collecting Birds' Eggs and building 
Bird Houses. Dramatic Play. The Circus. The Fourth of July 

PART TWO 

PLAY AT THE RURAL SCHOOL 

CHAPTER IV. THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SCHOOL 
GROUND 36 

Larger Grounds. Fences. Trees 

CHAPTER V. EQUIPPING THE SCHOOL GROUND ... 42 
The Sand Bin. Swings. Slide. Horizontal Bar. Running Track 
and Jumping Pit. Baseball and Playground-Baseball Diamonds. 
Volley-Bail Court. Tether-Ball Equipment. A Croquet Set. The 
Basket-Bali Court. The Cost of the Equipment and Supphes 

vii 



viii PLAY AND RECREATION 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VI. ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 53 

Games for Little Children. The Teaching of Games. Need of 
New Games. Volley Ball. Playground Baseball. Long Ball or 
Long Town. Tether Ball. Croquet and Tennis. Basket Ball. 
Play for the Girls. The Standard Athletic Test. Interschool 
Athletics. Time for Play. Walking Trips. The Schoolhouse as 
a Social Center 

CHAPTER VII. SCHOOLEXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUBS 72 

County School Fairs in Virginia. Boys' and Girls' Industrial 
Clubs 

PART THREE 

RECREATION IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY 

CHAPTER VIII. THE PLAY FESTIVAL AND PAGEANT 
IN THE OPEN COUNTRY 88 

The Work of the County Y.M.C.A. The County Superintendent 
of Schools. Hamilton County, Tennessee. Proposed Bill for Illi- 
nois. Organized at County Teachers' Institutes. Should reach the 
Entire Community. Athletic Events. Games. The Rural Pageant 

CHAPTER IX. RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 104 

Neither the Work nor the Play of Girls as Educational as that of 
Boys. Girls' Play not encouraged. The Adolescent Girl requires 
Some Romance and Adventure. Girls' School Training Unsatis- 
factory. Need of Extension Schools. Need of Play. Croquet. 
Tennis. Volley Ball. Indoor Baseball. Girls' Canning and Cook- 
ing Clubs. The Love of Nature. Walking. Riding Horseback. 
Driving. Rowing and Paddling. Automobiling. Recreation 
Calendar. A Coasting Party. A Sugar Party. A Corn Roast. 
Picnics. Camping Out. The Social Center. Social Morality in 
the Country. Dancing. The County Y.W.C.A. The Camp Hre 
Girls. Summary 

CHAPTER X. THE BOY SCOUTS THE SALVATION OF 
THE VILLAGE BOY 141 

Sources of the Movement. First Aid and Life-Saving. Patriot- 
ism. The Scout Patrol. The Scout Oath and Orders. Popu- 
larity of the Boy Scouts. Difficulty of securing Scout Masters. 
Should be a Part of the School Work. Boy Scouts for the Village 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XI. RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE . . 154 

Working too Many Hours. Conditions breed Discontent. Need 
of Labor-Saving Devices. Greater Efficiency in W^orlc. Work 
Uninteresting. Interest in Children. Thie Family Life. Reading. 
The Social Center. Need of a Vacation. Should play Games. 
Should drive and walk. Should belong to a Social Club. An 
Alumnae Association of a District School. Meaning of the 
Country-Life Movement 

CHAPTER XII. RECREATION FOR THE FARMER ... 169 

Absentee Farmers. Must enjoy Life as he goes along. Love of 
Nature. Love of Animals. The Farmer as a Scientist. The 
Farmer as a Mechanic. The Family Life. The Children. The 
Aged 

CFIAPTER XIII. COUNTRY PLAYGROUNDS iSo 

The Lakeside Resort. The Picnic Grove, or Township Park. 
Directed Play in Small Villages. The County Fair 

CHAPTER XIV. THE ORGANIZERS OF RURAL RECREA- 
TION 187 

The Clergyman. The Teacher. The County Superintendent of 
Schools. The County Secretaries of the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. 
The Agricultural Secretary. A Paid Organizer of Recreation 
needed in the Country. The Recreation District. The Work of 
the Rural Recreation Director. An Opportunity for a Philan- 
thropist 

PART FOUR 

THE RURAL SOCIAL CENTER 

CHAPTER XV. THE IDEALS AND METHODS OF ORGAN- 
IZING SOCIAL CENTERS 199 

Different Aims in Social-Center Development. Methods of 
Organization through the Board of Education. The Social-Center 
Association. The Recreation Association. A Parents' Association. 
A School-Improvement Association. The State University. The 
Agricultural College. A Normal School. Who should manage 
the Social Center. Financing the Social Center. How Much 
Territory should the Rural Social Center Cover? The Social- 
Center Building. Tamalpais Center, California. The One-Room 
School. A Private House 



X PLAY AND RECREATION 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XVI. THE RURAL CHURCH AS A SOCIAL 
CENTER 216 

Duty of the Church to organize vSociety and Recreation. Time 
for Doctrinal Sermons is Past. Decadent Condition of Country 
Churches. Organizing Recreation and Sociability builds up 
the Churches. The Organization Needed is not Difficult. The 
Country Church is without a Pastor. Can the Church do the 
Work without a Pastor ? 

CHAPTER XVII. EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION THROUGH 
THE RURAL SOCIAL CENTER 225 

School Exhibitions. Extension Classes in Agriculture and Do- 
mestic Science. Extension Lectures. Farmers' Institutes. Sum- 
mer Chautauquas. The Civic Debate. The Library 

CHAPTER XVIII. THE SOCIAL CENTER, THE CURE OF 
RURAL ISOLATION 243 

Farmers must play in the Winter Time. Country Morality. What 
Kinds of Recreation. Singing. The Moving Picture. The Social 
Center in the Summer Time. The Monthly Program 

CHAPTER XIX. THE SOCIAL CENTER FOR THE ORGAN- 
IZATION OF COUNTRY LIFE 255 

Present Lack of Organization. The Grange. The Social Center 
and Economic Cooperation 

INDEX . 261 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

A Playground Slide ig 

A School Building decorated, in Rockford, Illinois 37 

A School Fence covered with Vines, in Winnebago County, Illinois . 39 

Playground of a Rural School in Cherry Valley, Illinois 40 

The Play Equipment of a Rural School in Windsor County, Vermont 42 

Equipment in a Worcester Playground 45 

A Homemade Slide at a Rural School 46 

The Recess Time 54 

A Volley-Ball Game 59 

A Game of Indoor Baseball 61 

Basket Ball 65 

The Country Road as a Racetrack 67 

A Skiing Party 70 

A School Fair in Winnebago County, Illinois 74 

A Potato-Paring Contest in Wright County, Iowa 79 

Secretary Wilson addressing Corn-Club Champions 81 

A Stock-Judging Contest at the A. and M. College of Oklahoma . . 82 
A Lesson in Domestic Science for the Prize Winners at the State 

Fair School, Oklahoma 84 

A Rural Play Festival 89 

Potato Race at a Rural Play Festival 90 

An Exciting Moment 91 

The One-Hundred-Yard Dash 95 

Field Day and Play Picnic at Amenia, New York 98 

Play Festival at Normal School in Macomb, Illinois loi 

Sewing Contest 114 

A Playground Camp near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 126 

The Festival of the First Fire Maker, Hanoum Camp Fire Girls . . 134 

A Group of Camp Fire Girls from Springfield, Massachusetts . . . 137 

Camp Fire Girls learning to cook Out of Doors 139 

Boy Scouts learning the Secrets of Field and Forest 143 

A Troop of Boy Scouts on a Hike 14S 

A Bait-Casting Contest 170 



xii PLAY AND RECREATION 

PAGE 

Games at a^Dunsted Street Railroad Park, Butte, Montana .... 173 

Japanese Tea Garden at North Stonington, Connecticut 1S4 

Playground at North Stonington, Connecticut 185 

Evening Recreation Center in New York City 201 

A County Play Festival at the Normal School, Valley City, North 

Dakota 208 

A Country Neighborhood House 211 

Model Rural School, Kirksville, Missouri 214 

A Tomato-Vine-Pruning Contest 219 

Stock Judging 236 



INTRODUCTION 

To one who has observed how the small stump patch of 
the pioneer has given place to the broad, smooth acres of the 
modern farm, how the log cabin or dugout has been replaced 
by the modern house, how the lumber wagon has been suc- 
ceeded by the carriage or automobile, it appears that rural 
communities have made tremendous progress. The indus- 
trial development of America has been one of the wonders 
of the world ; but it cannot always be taken for granted that 
a larger farm will mean a larger life, that more wealth will 
mean more leisure, or that a better house will also mean a 
better home. We may well inquire if almost the opposite 
effect has not taken place in each case. 

In the days of the pioneer, while the members of the coun- 
try community were much scattered in area, they were drawn 
closely together in spirit. Their common perils and hardships, 
the loneliness of the woods and mountains, made of them a 
brotherhood of the wilderness. They watched with their sick, 
buried their dead, cared for the widowed and fatherless, and 
avenged sternly and remorselessly upon the prowling sav- 
ages the outrages committed. If a house or a barn was to be 
raised, the community turned out to help. If a wood was to 
be cleared, the neighbors assisted with the logrolling ; and 
there were husking bees for the youths and maidens, and 
quiltings for the women. The life and times made of the 
rural community a large family, in which there was much 
cooperation, and where every one took an interest in every 



xiv PLAY AND RECREATION 

one else. The houses were scattered, but the famihes were 
large and the social occasions of a primitive sort frequent. 
The days and times were full of hope. The young man did 
not look forward to being a hired man, but to being the 
proprietor of a farm. The girl looked forward to an early 
marriage and the responsible position of a matron. The 
primitive schoolhouse was a social center, where were held 
in the evenings the spelling matches, the debates, and the 
singing school. Such a life could not be tame or dull. It 
offered an almost ideal appeal to the spirit of youth. 

These conditions have passed so silently that we have 
scarcely been aware of the change ; the country still is living 
under the shadow of the pioneer and his method of thought. 
In the early days there was plenty of hunting and fishing, 
and there was an occasional scalping party, conducted by 
the Indians, which gave variety to life and prevented it 
from being dull. Such conditions brought out the manhood 
in boys and awoke the heroic in girls. There was not the 
time or energy or often the opportunity for vice. Men and 
women living under such conditions did not see the need of 
play. Life itself was a desperate game of engrossing inter- 
est. The farmer has been too busy improving his farm to 
take thought of social conditions or to notice the change. In 
his haste to be rich, he has forgotten to live. He has not 
learned to love nature or his work. He and his wife are 
working too long hours themselves, and working their sons 
and daughters much too long. P^ollowing a plow or a drag 
over a cultivated field is not as interesting as felling the trees 
in the forest and burning the clearing. Much farm machinery 
has been introduced and the work and hardships have become 
less. Perhaps the farm is not less interesting to the adult 
farmer who is trained to handle machinery and to understand 
the problems with which he has to deal, but country life is 



INTRODUCTION xv 

vastly less interesting to children and young people, because 
its danger and romance are gone. The nature appeal of great 
forests, and wild animals and a wild life is gone. The ad- 
venture and romance and exploration are gone. The oppor- 
tunities of taking up new land and becoming a proprietor have 
largely gone. The cooperation and sociability of the pioneer 
have been replaced by the independence that has come with 
safety and labor-saving devices. The rural school is no more 
a social center. The results of these conditions are upon us. 
Forty-three per cent of American farms are now held by ten- 
ants. It is very difficult if not impossible to get either a hired 
girl or a hired man in most sections. The more capable mem- 
bers of the population are drifting toward the city, and there 
is a vague but general unrest and dissatisfaction among the 
younger generation, which is the outward expression of this 
hunger for a larger life. 

The country must take seriously this problem of readjust- 
ment. It must provide some substitute for the adventure and 
romance and sociability that have disappeared. It must break 
the isolation and spirit of self-sufficiency of the modern farm 
that has replaced the interdependence and sociability of the 
pioneer. It must restore to the country school at least as much 
of social value as it had in the old days of spelling matches 
and debates. It must appropriate for itself the message of the 
modern gospel of play. This should not come to the country 
as something wholly new, but rather as a restoration and a 
readjustment. It is essentially an effort to give back to life 
those fundamental social values of which changing conditions 
have deprived it. ^ 

Rural life has become overserious and oversordid. It must 
perceive that life and love and happiness, not wealth, are the 
objects of living. There must be injected into it the spirit 
of play. The isolation of the farm home must be broken by 



xvi PLAY AND RECREATION 

establishing some place where farm people will frequently 
meet together, and the colder and freer months must be more 
largely utilized for education, recreation, and the public good. 
The hours of work must be reduced, and the half holiday must 
be brought in. The country must discover again in its daily 
life the adventure and romance and beauty that have passed. 
'• All too often in these years of earnest struggle for success, 
the children have been only a by-product of the farm. The 
farmer has loved and cared for them, but the rearing and 
training of a worthy family has not been one of his objects 
in life. He has cared for his corn and potatoes, but his chil- 
dren have "just growed." Play he has often confounded 
either with idleness or exercise, deeming it only a useless 
waste of energy, better devoted to pulling weeds or washing 
dishes. Yet playfulness is almost synonymous with child- 
hood ; it is the deepest expression of the child soul, and^ 
nature's instrument for fashioning him to the human plan. 
Play is needed by the country child no less than by the city 
child ; but, with decreasing families and enlarging farms, it is 
becoming increasingly difficult. The equipment that is neces- 
sary must be introduced into the home and the yard. Play 
must be organized at the country school, as it is coming to be 
at the city school. The social center, the Boy Scouts, and 
the Camp Fire Girls must bring back the adventure and 
romance that the country has lost. The rural school must 
train the child to perceive and love the beauty of the open 
country, to hear the thousand voices in which Nature speaks 
to her true worshipers. 

_ These are obviously no slight problems. If this small 
volume may in any way make it easier for those who have 
to work it out in practice in the farm home, the rural school, 
and the open country, the author will be well satisfied. 



PART ONE 



PLAY IN THE HOME AND ITS ENVIRONS 



PLAY IN THE HOME AND ITS ENVIRONS 

The hope and glory of this country have always been its 
farm homes. Here have been nourished most of our great 
men. Here have been bred the sturdy self-reliance and in- 
dependence that is not easily led astray by mobs or dema- 
gogues, that does not follow each will-o'-the-wisp that flaunts 
across the times. In the farm family there is an intim.acy of 
knowledge and experience that is not in other families, for all 
are partners in a common undertaking. The farm offers to 
the children an out-door life, and helpful tasks, and dogs and 
pigs and sheep and horses for friends, and work to do, and 
the forest and stream with all their wild inhabitants to stir 
old racial memories. If to this is added sympathy and an 
appreciation of those subtler values of the spirit which money 
cannot buy and the purse may not contain, and if the necessary 
chores and occasional work are not allowed to become child 
labor, then the farm is the ideal place to rear children. 

The besetting sin of the American farmer has always been 
his materialism. In his pursuit of a living he has forgotten 
to live. Hunting and fishing, which have furnished most of 
the adventure and sport to the farm, have well-nigh gone. 
With each decade the farms have become larger and the 
children fewer. Race suicide in the country is a double 
tragedy, because the only child in the country home has no 
one to play with and grows up a little old man or woman. 
The children have furnished most of the idealism and poetry 
to country life. Their play has relieved its monotony. Their 
future has furnished motive and aspiration to what otherwise 

3 



4 PLAY AND RECREATION 

would have been drudgery. But the farm woman must have 
more time to organize the social life of her family and the 
community. The farmer must see in the play of his chil- 
dren the spirit of childhood, that may never be sacrificed 
to farm profits. 

The Country Life Commission has given us a new vision, 
which all must be made to see ; the primary question for the 
country to solve is not the question of profitable agriculture, 
but the question of a life that is worth while. If this and the 
rearing of a worthy family rather than acres may become the 
ambition of the American farmer, then the country commu- 
nity may well be the ideal for all society to follow. 



CHAPTER I 

PLAY IN THE HOME 

It has been said that the child learns more in the first six 
years of his life than he does in all the years that come after- 
wards. During these first years play constitutes his curric- 
ulum, the house or yard his schoolroom, and the mother 
his principal teacher. The home must furnish the place, the 
materials, and the companionship for this play, else these 
years will largely lack the training that they should have. 

The home is disappearing from the city, because there has 
been little to draw the family together and much to force the 
members apart. The business of most city men is absolutely 
apart from their families. The various forms of evening recre- 
ation disrupt the family at night, so that the members very 
likely have few topics of conversation in common. On the 
other hand, the country family work and live together ; the 
father, mother, and children all understand what is going on 
and take a common interest in what is undertaken. Their 
social life, at its best, is nearly the ideal life of the family. 
But in general this is only possible when the evening finds 
the members still unexhausted. Families should regard this 
evening of sociability as one of the most important parts of 
the day, no more to be eliminated by early retiring and early 
rising and the lassitude of exhaustion than the working day. 

The MotJicr the Oi^ganiscr of the Social Life of the Home. 
The mother must be the organizer of the family social center 
in most cases. It is her highest duty as home maker. It 
must not be neglected even if the dishes are unwiped and the 

5 



6 PLAY AND RECREATION 

floor unswept. It seems like a sad criticism on our social life 
that it is not generally so regarded. If we hire a young woman 
to have charge of a social center in the city, she takes it as a 
matter of course that she must have some plan for what is to 
be done each evening so that every one may have a good time. 
It would seem that the duty was far more pressing for the 
mother. If she succeeds in organizing the sociability and sym- 
pathy of her home circle, she will make her house into a home 
where every one will be at ease, where all the fair virtues of a 
noble life and the charms of personal relations will develop. 
The boys and girls will not care to go out evenings, and they 
will be kept away from countless temptations. Surely, to 
produce such a home must be the highest ambition of every 
worthy wife and mother. Yet in how many homes is there any 
conscious attempt to make the home life attractive .-' Does this 
mean that the twenty-five or thirty dollars a month that is paid 
to the girl at the social center is a greater inducement to her 
than the thought of having a happy, contented, and virtuous 
family is to the farm mother .? Undoubtedly this is not so. 
There are two serious difficulties. The farm wife has so 
much work to do that she has no time or energy left, and 
it does not seem to have occurred to her that this is her 
duty. She has not had the sort of training that would 
make her skillful in doing it. 

In saying that the mother should have some plan for the 
evenings, I do not mean, of course, that she is to post on a 
blackboard a program for the evening any more than she 
will post the menu of the evening meal ; but nevertheless 
she has to determine what she will have for supper, and why 
should she not take some thought as to how the family is to 
spend the evening ? If there is not something attractive to 
do, the family will surely not care to spend its evenings at 
home ; and if what the home has to offer is really attractive, 



PLAY IN THE HOME 7 

the family will not care to spend its evenings elsewhere. 
This plan should, so far as possible, provide for a period 
of general sociability each evening — the sharing of the ex- 
periences of the day that is necessary for mutual understand- 
ing and sympathy. Very likely there should be a period in 
which some one should read aloud from some book or maga- 
zine, and very likely there should be some singing or music 
and the playing of games. Perhaps the neighbors or their 
children should be invited in, or the family should go out to 
visit or to hear a lecture or attend a play. There must be 
great variation from day to day, but each evening should be 
worth while. This will not always be easy of course, but there 
are few things that are worth while that are always easy. The 
father should bring home his bit of news and share in the 
games and the sociability. The home life has gone pretty 
well in many cases without any plan at all, and it is only 
reasonable to think that a definite effort to improve condi- 
tions would have some effect even if the performers were 
not very skillful. 

The Value of Play 

Although play is the one activity in life in which the whole 
child takes part, parents who have not thought much about 
it often confuse it with idleness and regard it as far less im- 
portant for the child's welfare than the tasks and duties that 
they assign. But nature is far wiser than parents and pursues 
her wonted way quite oblivious of their opinions, and in her 
secret heart she has determined that the child shall live in a 
world of play and make-believe, and through its occupations 
and experiences shall be mainly fitted for the experiences that 
come afterward. We are apt to speak of childhood as a period 
of preparation, but when we come to weigh the gains of life 
after its struggles and victories are over, I doubt whether we 
shall find anything in business or scholarship or politics that 



8 PLAY AND RECREATION 

has weighed heavier in the scale, that has meant more to the 
spirit, than the joyous self -forgetful play with brothers and 
sisters in our childhood's home. Every period of life is pre- 
paratory to the period that comes afterward, but each portion 
of life is also an end in itself, and to regard it as preparatory 
is to degrade it. " Write it upon thy heart, ' To-day is the best 
day in all the year.' " If we were to measure these experiences 
in terms of preparation, however, I believe that the showing 
would be equally good, for we should find that this play had 
largely determined our habits, cultivated our emotions, and 
furnished the motives for subsequent action. Consciously or 
unconsciously the guiding hand of the mother is upon this 
play. She must furnish the toys and equipment, she must 
allow the time that is necessary, she must not seek to per- 
suade the child that it is not worth while, else she will dwarf 
or pervert these impulses which nature has given to the 
child for training in the most fundamental things. 

FiRESTOE Cheer 

Some of the most beautiful pictures in art and poetry are 
pictures of the home circle gathered around the open fire at 
night. These pictures appeal to us because they call up simi- 
lar memories from our own past. The passing of the open 
fireplace may have been an economic gain, but it has been a 
great social loss. Fire has meant much to man in his struggles 
with wild beasts and nature and in furnishing him warmth 
and food. It speaks to his emotions and imagination as few 
other things can. Whether the circle sits in silent reverie be- 
fore the crackling logs, or engages in conversation of the work 
of the day and the plans of the morrow, the fire is an element 
in the picture and the impression ; it draws its circle together 
and makes it a unity. I am not aware whether the word "spark- 
ing " came from the young people's sitting before the fire 



PLAY IN THE HOME 9 

together or not, but certainly there is no more wholesome or 
propitious place, for the open fire is the best and most silent 
of confederates. The fire creates the family " circle " and 
promotes a deeper understanding and sympathy among the 
members. If it is possible, for the sake of family life there 
should be some place where an open fire can be kindled on 
winter evenings. It should be the family council fire and the 
center of sociability and play. We have a beautiful picture of 
what it might mean to the rural home in Whittier's " Snow 
Bound." Such activities as will bring the family together 
frequently around the fireside should be consciously planned 
for. There should be story-telling, the popping of corn, the 
cracking of nuts, the roasting of chestnuts, etc. 

Music 

Music is at the same time art and recreation and sociability. 
It is obviously much needed in the country. The Greeks 
made music a part of the training of every boy, because they 
believed that it harmonizes the soul. Music draws people to- 
gether — unites them in thought and feeling. It is one of 
the easy ways of becoming acquainted when a group can 
sing together, and it is also one of the easy ways of forgetting 
differences, if such exist. Music at its best seems to be a 
common medium in which spirits blend. If a family can 
sing together occasionally it will do much to maintain the 
family harmony, and it will also provide a valuable train- 
ing. It helps to throw off the care of the day and to rest 
from monotonous work. It should be a part of the family 
policy that at least one member of the family should have 
some training in instrumental music, and that all should 
sing. The instrumental training, however, is no longer en- 
tirely necessary, because there are now so many and such 
good mechanical piano players, victrolas and phonographs, 



lO PLAY AND RECREATION 

etc. that fairly good music can be secured from this source. 
Music makes a definite contribution to the home, to individ- 
ual training, and to the social life of the community ; for all 
of these reasons it should not be neglected. 

Reading and Story-Telling 

By the time children arc a little over a year old, they de- 
light to hear stories told. Story-telling is a delightful form of 
recreation, which is much practiced by all primitive peoples. 
It is the immediate predecessor of the book in the develop- 
ment of literature. The Iliad of Homer and several other 
great racial epics have been handed down for centuries be- 
fore the invention of writing by special, story-tellers. It is 
the natural way to interest children in literature. If there is 
some one in the family that will tell stories in the evening, 
it adds greatly to the family life. Reading, on the other 
hand, often detracts from the life of the family by creating 
different interests, by preventing conversation, and by with- 
drawing the readers from the family circle. However, reading 
aloud does not ha\'e this effect. It brings the group together 
and gives them common interests. It should be encouraged 
in each family. It is well if the news and a few good stories 
can be read in this way each week. This allows comment 
and explanation, and makes it easy for the parents to dis- 
cover the real interests of their children. It shows their atti- 
tude toward various situations, and gives an opportunity for 
helpful suggestion. 

Children that are read to and told stories at home, and 
given books to play with, will often learn to read without any 
one's realizing how or when they learned. Picture books for 
little children are so common and so cheap now that there 
is no excuse for withholding them. The child who has not 
been read to or told stories from books when small comes 



PLAY IN THE HOME II 

to school v\dthout having any motive for learning to read, 
while the child who has learned the delight that may come 
from this source naturally covets the power to explore and 
taste for himself. The prescribed work of any course of study 
will not produce general culture. It does not give breadth of 
view, and unless the information is kept alive by further read- 
ing, it is soon lost. If children have formed a habit of reading 
at home, they will learn nearly or quite as much from this 
reading as they will from their studies. Small children always 
love fairy tales, or folk tales as they are better called. These 
are, for the most part, old racial stories which have been 
handed down by oral tradition for hundreds or even thou- 
sands of years. They represent a primitive view of the world 
and things which is essentially the child's view. His nature 
responds to them, because they represent the world as he 
sees it. We need not fear that they will lead to untruthful- 
ness or misinformation. The child outgrows the fairy tale 
and its point of view as naturally as he does his five-year-old 
clothes. The boys crave and should have books of adventure. 
There should be at least one good child's magazine, like the 
Yoiit/is Companion or St. Nicholas, that can be looked for- 
ward to each week or month and read and pondered. If possi- 
ble there should be some well-lighted room where those who 
wish to read can be by themselves, undisturbed by the family 

conversation. 

Toys 

Toys are used largely as educational material in some for- 
eign countries, but most toys that are on sale in an Ameri- 
can toy-store mean mere diversion or dissipation of mind. 
The endless mechanical toys that run a few times and then 
smash up do not serve any considerable purpose. The baby 
needs a rattle and soon afterward a ball, but very many chil- 
dren are given too many toys. It is much better for them 



12 PLAY AND RECREATION 

to have a few simple toys than a number of complex ones. 
The simple toy which can be played with a long time is the 
most serviceable ; but I suspect that there are only two types 
of toys that really have much value for children, and they are 
building and dramatizing material, such as blocks and a doll. 
Children like large blocks much better than the small ones 
that are ordinarily furnished them. If any one will take an 
ordinary two-by-four and saw it into blocks about the size of 
bricks in a mortise box, the children will greatly prefer these 
to the blocks that we purchase at the stores. It would be well 
to take also a number of boards about four inches wide and 
saw them into strips about a foot long. ,Out of these a great 
variety of things can be built, and it will be found that the 
children will never use the small blocks that we ordinarily 
purchase for them while these larger ones are available. It 
is well also to have some large, square boards with gimlet 
holes in them in which twigs can be stuck to represent 
forests, or yards, etc. Toys are valuable pretty much in 
proportion as they lend themselves to dramatization and 
enable the child to act out the stories he hears and reads. 
For this purpose it is well to have some figures of both 
animals and men, so that the small dramatist may be able 
to represent life. 

Parents, if they can afford it, usually purchase an elaborate 
wax doll for their children, but all the studies that have been 
made of the feeling of children for dolls show that they 
love the rag doll more than they do the wax doll. The 
wax doll is a doll and remains so, but the rag doll may be 
anything — a child, a soldier, a giant, anything that is needed. 
For exactly this reason the wax doll is not as educative to 
the child as the rag doll. Probably the toys of the rich are 
not as valuable to the children in general as the simpler toys 
of middle-class children. Dramatic play is the method that 



PLAY IN THE HOME 13 

nature has adopted to make nature and life real to children. 
The parents should give this play all encouragement, and 
often help them in their new attempts. 

A Play Room for the Children 

Wherever it is possible there should be some room in the 
house that is recognized as the children's room. Here they 
should be pretty free to play the things that they want to and 
have things much as they wish. If it is only an attic that they 
can paper and decorate, it is worth while. Such a room gives 
so much more freedom to the play. It helps to develop in- 
dependence and originality in what is done, if it can be done 
away from adult observation. This is the place for the chil- 
dren's library, for their collections and curios, for their post 
cards and other things that they prize, and also, of course, 
the place for their toys and games. 

Playing Games 

Most of the games for the home are so inexpensive that the 
poorest parents can well afford them. Dominoes, checkers, 
and authors are standard games that are played nearly every- 
where. Other games may be furnished as the children tire of 
these, but they should not be given more than one new game 
at a time, A child will learn to calculate from dominoes as easily 
as from the arithmetic, and it will be much more interesting 
to him. The child who has become familiar with the great 
literary men and their works from the game of authors will 
want to read these works also. Only recently I searched sev- 
eral bookstores to find " The Tent on the Beach " by Whittier. 
I did not know anything about it, but I remembered that it 
was one of the works by Whittier in the game of authors that 
I played as a small boy. I have always welcomed one of these 
books as an old acquaintance. Parents should play with their 



14 PLAY AND RECREATION 

children for their own and their children's sakes, for there is 
no other way that one can keep in intimate and sympathetic 
touch with a child. When Froebel invented the kindergarten 
he did not intend that there should be a separate set of teach- 
ers to play these games with the little children. They were 
designed for the mothers. The common play not only estab- 
lishes a sympathetic relationship, but the recreation is needed 
by the parents as much as it is by the children. I have read in 
questionary returns thousands of accounts of cases of fear that 
have made the lives of little children wretched. Most of these 
fears were entirely groimdless and would have disappeared 
if the children had told them. They were fears of lions in 
Massachusetts, of Jesse James and his gang, of the bogie man, 
and hundreds of other similar things, having no relation to 
actual dangers. At puberty comes in a whole new line of 
fears and temptations. Unless the parents are on the most 
familiar terms with their children, these fears and temptations 
are never told, and often make the years of youth barren and 
despondent. It is through play that this intimacy is most 

easily established. 

Visiting 

It is one of the sad features of the new social order in the 
country that people do not visit as much as formerly. The 
visit to a distant grandmother was always one of the greatest 
events of the year for me, and the coming of cousins from 
another part of the state was also an event to be remembered. 
Even to stay all night with a boy who attended the same 
school was something to give color to a whole week — not 
much less an event than a trip to Europe would be now. 
Parents often fail to appreciate their children's point of 
view and hence do not see these things in their real impor- 
tance to children. The family cannot always be satisfied 
with the society of its own members. It needs the touch of 



PLAY IN THE HOME 15 

outside life as well. The mother should plan for visits and 
have neighboring children come in to spend the evening or 
the night occasionally. A skillful woman may thus make her 
home the center of a most attractive social life for the im- 
mediate neighborhood. A social life too that is safe and over 
which she may have immediate supervision. If she does 
not wish her girls and boys to go out evenings, here is her 
answer to the lure of outside attractions. 

Christmas 

Christmas is a sort of concentration of the spirit of home, 
a quintessence of kindness and love. It gives us the ideal of 
what the home spirit should be. It is this sort of a social rela- 
tionship and attitude that the home should seek to cultivate 
and maintain all the year, and largely by the same means of 
teaching each to render service to the others. Christmas is 
one of the great educators and softeners of the human heart. 
The social atmosphere would be a little colder all through the 
year, if it were not for its warmth. It should be made as much 
of an event as possible, with the tree and lights and mystery 
and everything else that can make it appeal to the imagina- 
tion ; for is it not the one day of the year when fairyland 
touches our land of the humdrum and the commonplace, and 
the people come across, loaded with presents and good will ? 

As a quickener of the imagination, Santa Claus is doing a 
great work. At no very distant time all unknown lands and 
even the surrounding forest and darkness were peopled with 
gnomes and fairies. But science has moved down the centu- 
ries, a perfect Juggernaut for all these beautiful and mysterious 
creatures that once inhabited the brooks and the forests and 
the air. It has made life hard and cold and unemotional, not 
at all the sort of a world the children need. Santa Claus is 
the last of all these beautiful and benign creatures, and it will 



1 6 PLAY AND RECREATION 

be a sad day for childhood if the time should come when he 
too shall disappear, to leave behind a dead material world of 
natural laws. One needs only to see the little skeptic strug- 
fflingf with his doubts to realize how much he means to the 
child heart. We need not fear that the falling creed will 
leave a scar. The race and the individual naturally outgrow 
and cast aside belief after belief in order that they may take 
on other and larger faiths, more true to their developed state. 
If the disillusionment comes too early, it means struggle 
and bitterness, but if the belief merely falls away like the 
ripened leaf or the tadpole's tail after it has served its pur- 
pose, it leaves no scar and causes scarcely a pang. A developed 
imagination is one of the most distinctive characteristics of 
a superior person. 



CHAPTER II 

PLAY IN THE DOORYARD OF THE FARM HOME 

The first playground of the children is the house itself. 
During the years from two to five or six most of their play 
is in the yard. For the years that come after, larger grounds 
are mostly demanded, but still the yard is bound to be the 
center of the family sociability, and much of its play during 
the warmer months of the year. It should be suitable for 
such a use. 

Beautifying the Dooryard 

In the city land is costly and the houses are huddled 
together. There are no fences as a rule, and nothing to dis- 
tinguish one from another. The country, on the other hand, 
has plenty of room ; there is no need of crowding, and it 
should be possible to make the yard a place of beauty. There 
are many who do not care for fences around private houses, 
but to me the fence seems desirable because it adds a sense 
of privacy to the yard and the home, and it sets it apart as a 
place by itself. It serves to suggest that this is not the place 
for the mowing machine and the hay tedder or the self -loader. 
It makes of the yard an institution, a separate entity around 
which feelings and thoughts may gather. An evergreen hedge 
of privet or cedar may be an ornament to the yard, or a woven 
wire fence that is covered with flowers may be still more beauti- 
ful. The yard should contain a few fine trees if possible, for 
the shade, the birds, and the romantic associations that gather 
around trees. There should be some flowers, if may be, and 

17 



1 8 PLAY AND RECREATION 

a few flowering shrubs. Country life is all too materialistic 

at best, and it is most cheering to drive by a country home 

and find a fine bed of flowers in the yard, because it shows 

that beauty has not been utterly forgotten in the pursuit of 

gain. Flowers are very restful after a hard day's work, more 

so than has been generally realized. Whenever the mind 

can slip back from a period of conscious effort to dwell for a 

time on pure sensation, it is one of the most restful things 

that it can do ; and a bed of beautiful flowers forever holds 

out that invitation. The flower bed is also one of the easy 

ways of cultivating the sense of beauty and love for natural 

things in children, and this is one of the tastes that must be 

cultivated if country life is to be as attractive as it should be. 

Doubtless there are other necessary uses of the dooryard 

besides the play of the children, but there is no other that is 

more important. There must be a considerable space which 

is suitable for them to romp on, and there must be provision 

for their games. 

A Sand Bin 

Every dooryard where there are small children should 
contain a sand bin. This should be placed under a tree or in 
the lee of the house, where it will have shade during the hot 
hours. The bin should be five or six feet square, and ten or 
twelve inches high, with a flat, broad seat or molding board 
running around the top of the bin. It does not need a bottom. 
The best sand is the fine white sand from the sea or lake 
shore, but any plastering sand will do. The children should 
be provided with pails and large spoons with which to dig 
and mold the sand. They should be encouraged to lay out 
the road, the creek, the farm, and the neighboring village in 
the sand bin and there to dramatize the tales they read or 
hear. It is well to have a quantity of small round pebbles 
and let them outline their drawings with these. Children will 



PLAY IN THE DOORYARD 



19 



enjoy a sand bin from the time they are one year old until 

they are ten or twelve. There is no play interest that is more 

universal than this love of digging and molding shapes with 

the hand, 

A Small Slide 

Of all the pieces of apparatus in our city playgrounds, 
one of the most popular is the slide. It is also one that can 
be depended on to give thorough satisfaction in the dooryard. 

A kindergarten slide 
nine feet long can be pur- 
chased of the mail-order 
houses for about fifteen 
dollars. It will be used 
almost constantly by the 
little children if there are 
enough of them about 
to make it interesting. 
Such a slide in one of our 
neighbor's yards is used 
constantly by a group of 
children, the oldest of 
whom is five and the 
youngest two. They are 
all able to go down head 
first, on their backs, and 
in nearly every other 

• conceivable fashion. There has not been a child hurt. Even 
on the city playgrounds where there are a great many children 
using it, there are few accidents. Children have always loved 
to slide down the banisters, and nearly every conceivable in- 
cline in the cities is kept polished by them. I have often 
been struck by the smooth appearance of a stone coping and 
have not understood until I saw a child come down. 




A PLAYGROUND SLIDE 



20 PLAY AND RECREATION 



Swings 



From the limb of a tree if possible there should be sus- 
pended a rope swing or two. Swinging is an experience that 
perhaps harks back to our original tree-top home. At any 
rate, it has a universal appeal to children, and they cannot 
afford to miss the experience. It is worth while to have a 
lawn swing in the yard also, for both the children and the 
adults. I have been much interested this year in watching a 
group of five children 'that have made frequent use of a lawn 
swing in our back yard. I am not sure but this swing should 
be introduced into the course of study and made a part of 
the prescribed work in geography. The oldest of these chil- 
dren was six and the youngest was a little over two ; yet they 
all played this game, and each took all of the parts. One 
child would be the engineer to run the "train," and one would 
be the conductor to take up the tickets. The engineer would 
start up the train and run to Chicago or New York, the con- 
ductor collecting the tickets (leaves) ; then the train would be 
stopped and everybody would get out and gather more tickets 
from the nearest bush or weed. After this the train would 
start again with a different engineer and conductor and run 
to St. Louis or some local station. Even the smallest child 
learned the names of the places and the way the train was 
operated. 

A Tent or Playhouse 

Every yard should contain a tent or a playhouse or both. 
If there can be only one, the tent is better, as that serves a 
great variety of uses in the country. It can be used for sleep- 
ing out of doors in the summer time, for fishing and camping 
trips, and for countless adventures that would not otherwise 
be thought of. The tent is, however, rather too light to 
be a first-class playhouse. A playhouse should arouse the 



PLAY IN THE DOORYARD 21 

imagination a little ; it should be dim within, so that all can- 
not be plainly seen. If it could be a cave, that is the sort of 
a playhouse that almost any group of children would prefer. 
The playhouse should not be too much like a real house. It 
is quite as well if the children make it themselves. A fence 
corner that is boarded up and roofed over, or a very primitive 
affair that can be made of rough boards, is quite as good as 
one that is built by a carpenter out of rosewood. If the house 
can be made in a tree, that is the best of all, especially if it 
gives an outlook as well. It takes only a short time and very 
little ingenuity to make such a house if a suitable tree is 
available. If the house is only a platform with a railing 
around it, it will serve. 

Croquet 

The yard of every farmhouse should provide a croquet 
court and set. Croquet is probably the commonest outdoor 
game in the country. It is in every way well suited to country 
conditions. It requires only two players. It is a good social 
game, not overstrenuous, and adapted alike to the old and 
the young. An eight-mallet set can be had for a dollar, or as 
much more as you wish to pay. 

Quoits 

Somewhere in the back of the yard, so as not to make it 
unsightly, there should be a place for quoits. The orthodox 
way, of course, is to use horseshoes and to cut the stake from 
the woodpile. 

Tennis 

If there are young people in the family, or the farmer and 
his wife themselves are young, there should be provision for 
tennis. Tennis is an excellent game for the country, because 
it requires only two players, and because it is a game which 



22 PLAY AND RECREATION 

both the boys and the girls can play. I suppose it would cause 
some astonishment to see the farmer and his wife out play- 
ing tennis after supper or on a Saturday afternoon, but I 
know few things that would be more wholesome or salutary. 
The country has room for tennis which the city has not. If 
a dirt court is to be constructed, the farmer has the imple- 
ments with which to make it. At first blush, it would appear 
that the farming business is overstrenuous for such a form 
of recreation, but it must be remembered that the farming 
business is becoming less and less strenuous ; the farmer is 
becoming more and more the operator of machines which are 
doing the heavy work. There are considerable parts of the 
year when his work is not hard at all. It would be more valu- 
able, however, for his wife and daughter than it would be for 
him, and if it calls over the neighbor's son to play with the 
daughter in the evening, this will be better than the constant 
riding in the single buggy. The farmer tends to become 
muscle bound and awkward from his work, and tennis would 
help him to keep supple and active. Tennis has a wide age 
range, as it is played with pleasure from twelve years old 

to sixty. ^ 

Tether-Ball and Volley Ball 

Tether-ball is also an excellent game for the farm home, 
in that it takes only two players, and it makes the player hold 
his head up and put his shoulders back. Volley ball is the 
very best game of all, because it raises the head, puts the 
shoulders back, and expands the chest. It will, however, take 
from four to ten players to be very satisfactory and will re- 
quire some of the neighbor's boys and girls to join in most 
cases. As both of these games are described in Chapter VI 
I refrain from describing them in detail here. 

The cost of the equipment which I have mentioned would 
be very slight ; with the exception of the equipment for 



PLAY IN THE DOORYARD 23 

tennis and volley ball, a mere trifle. The sand bin and play- 
house can be made from odds and ends that would otherwise 
be wasted. There is scarcely a farm home that cannot afford 
to have these things. 

Pets 

Children are naturally fond of animals. The ownership of 
a dog or cat gives the child a certain importance and dignity 
in his own eyes, and its care is a valuable training. 

I have gone over thousands of papers on the feeling of 
children for animals. They all show that the child regards 
the dog or cat as he does a person. He talks to it in the 
same way. He interprets its thoughts and language by the 
sounds that the animal makes. The dog especially gives a 
great opportunity for the enlargement of experience and sym- 
pathy. Its care has much the same effect upon the child as 
the care of a dependent human being, and it will often come 
next to the father or mother in affection. The dog in his 
play constantly lures the child to activity. He is an inexpen- 
sive and most valuable toy, that is always changing its posi- 
tion and occupation. His usefulness as a hunter has largely 
ceased. As a watchman he probably does as much harm 
as good. He occasionally saves the life of a child in time 
of danger, but he probably kills as many or more in his 
anger or rabies. But the real use of the dog is to the spirit 
of the child. There is a deep sympathy and comradeship 
between them, which is one of the valuable experiences of 
childhood. As a mere inciter to physical activity he is worth 
as much as a gymnasium. Not only does the dog lure the 
child constantly into playing games and races, but with him 
the child will venture into the woods and the dark where he 
would otherwise be afraid, and will take long walks and trips 
of exploration. The loyalty of the dog to his masters, little 



24 PLAY AND RECREATION 

and big, is one of the most beautiful of moral qualities. On 
the other hand, not much can be said for the cat. She in- 
cites to little activity, has little if any loyalty, is likely to 
scratch if annoyed, and is the most serious menace to all our 
common birds. We keep the cat to catch mice, but she prob- 
ably catches more birds than mice, and the mice would be 
more surely caught in a trap. 

Chickens 

On the farm and in the village, but especially in the vil- 
lage, it is often possible to combine the care of animals with 
profit through raising chickens. The ordinary garbage will 
keep a considerable number ; in the village there is apt to be 
no use for this, and it accumulates or has to be buried, if 
things are to be kept in a sanitaiy condition. The chickens 
will not cost much outside the care. If the family will now 
purchase the eggs from the boy or girl at regular prices, they 
will secure fresh eggs at no greater price than they have been 
accustomed to pay, and will provide the boy or girl with an 
allowance at the same time. The chickens will furnish a good 
deal of valuable knowledge, keep the children out of mischief, 
and give them regular duties to perform, a new interest, and 
some spending money. 



CHAPTER III 

SOME EXPERIENCES THAT EVERY COUNTRY BOY 
SHOULD HAVE 

In the pioneer days, life offered to the boy in the country 
ahiiost exactly what his spirit craved. There was a primitive 
open-air life, with some romance and a good deal of adven- 
ture. There was an opportunity for scouting and exploration ; 
there was the Indian fighting and hunting of bear or deer ; 
there was the fishing and the life of the woods and the camp 
fire. This is the kind of a life that any vigorous boy usually 
craves. The Boy Scouts have sprung up like mushrooms 
all over the world in response to such an appeal. Much of 
the adventure of pioneer times has gone, but there is still an 
opportunity for many valuable experiences in the country, for 
which the city has no facilities. I believe that the boy who 
has not been hunting or fishing or swimming before he is 
twelve years old will be the poorer for it all the rest of his life. 
No pressure of work or school should be allowed to crowd 
these experiences out, for, in a large way, they are more 
valuable than work and more educative than the school. 

Hunting and Fishing 

Royce says that we can judge of the value of any experience 
by its tendency to produce maximal experiences. Certainly 
experiences that stand out in memory, that rise unbidden to 
keep us company in our moments of leisure, are more likely 
to influence our lives than experiences that are lived through 
and forgotten. To me, the memory of the old swimming hole 

-5 



26 PLAY AND RECREATION 

and its joys, of the pickerel we pursued and speared, of the 
suckers we sought by torchhght, of the mink and coon and 
muskrat that we trapped in the fah, is as plain to-day as though 
a quarter of a century had not passed between. Perhaps I did 
not learn anything of value in these pursuits, but if education 
means the arousing of the spirit, the really living the largest 
and most intense life of which we are capable, there have 
been few things since then that have been so intensely educa- 
tive. The eagerness of the spirit which arose in response to 
this nature call shows that it was satisfying an inner need, a 
natural instinct or appetite. It was the call of the wild before 
the child soul had entirely forgotten its original home. 

I wish that we might make a law, applying to the older com- 
munities, forbidding all adults to hunt and trap, in order that 
we might save these experiences for the boys. I doubt whether 
the boy to whom it has been denied can ever develop that full- 
ness of emotional and spiritual life that he should have. It was 
through experiences like this that the human brain was first 
developed, and it responds to them as it does to nothing else. 

The hunting instinct is largely unrewarded in many sections 
of the country at present, as the game has disappeared ; but the 
boy still wants a gun, if it is only to shoot at a mark. A city 
boy thus eciuipped is usually a nuisance, — a menace to the 
welfare of the country, — because he fires indiscriminately upon 
everything alive, shooting robins, bluebirds, and other song- 
sters with the same readiness that he would a rabbit or a 
squirrel. The small hunter, like all beginners, needs some 
training. The primitive warrior is flourishing his spear and 
shouting his battle cry within the boy, and the successful way 
to quiet him is to let him have his way, that the hunter may 
evolve into the agriculturist, as he has in racial history. 
If the boy is provided with a shotgun, he will doubtless get 
more game, but there is not much sense of achievement in 



EXPERIENCES 27 

this, and he does not learn to shoot. A shotgun is expensive 
to maintain and is more lil^ely to start fires. The kind of 
arm that a boy ought to have in most locahties is a twenty- 
two target rifle with all safety appliances, such as can be pur- 
chased from a mail-order department for from three to eight 
dollars. If the farmer will now offer bounties for the common 
pests, about as much as they are worth or even much less, 
the boy will keep himself in ammunition, will develop marks- 
manship, and have a fine time doing it. It is estimated that 
every rat on the farm will eat a bushel of corn or wheat dur- 
ing the year. He will cost fifty cents or more for his keep. 
If the farmer can get his son to shoot the rat for ten cents, 
he will be making forty cents by the bargain. Every sparrow 
will probably eat a peck or so of grain and will also drive 
away the other birds that protect the farm crops by eating 
moths and worms. If the farmer pays his son five cents for 
each sparrow, he will be making a good investment. Probably 
every blue jay robs the nests of a dozen or more other birds. 
He is beautiful, but his scream is discordant, and he gets his 
living at the farmer's expense. The red squirrel robs the 
nests of many birds, drives away the large game squirrels, 
carries away the nuts from the very doorstep, and steals the 
corn from the crib. The farmer may well add him to the list 
at the same price. The woodchuck lives largely on the grass 
in the meadow, his burrow is bad for horses to break into, 
and the mound of earth and pebbles obstructs the mower and 
dulls the knives. He tracks down a great deal of grass that 
he does not eat. The farmer can afford to give his son fifteen 
or twenty cents for him, and as much or more for any hawk 
or owl or skunk that may develop a taste for fresh chicken. 
In this instance, as in gardening, while the farmer is fur- 
nishing his son sport and an allowance, he is actually saving 
money at the same time. 



28 PLAY AND RECREATION 

Swimming 

Swimming is another of the standard experiences of child- 
hood that no child can miss without being the poorer for it. 
Bathing may be dangerous, but courage is cultivated only in 
the presence of danger, and it is worth the cost. The country 
parent may as well take it for granted that his son is going 
to go in swimming, as he did himself as a boy, and look 
around for a safe place. It is the swimming that is forbidden, 
which must seek out-of-the-way places, that is most danger- 
ous. Children should be given some instruction in rescuing 
a drowning person and in resuscitation, just as the Boy 
Scouts are now doing everywhere. Swimming has long been 
a part of the course of instruction in many English schools. 
In several of our city systems it is now being taught to all 
the boys in certain grades. The high schools of Boston and 
several of our great universities require swimming for grad- 
uation. Swimming is an accomplishment that appeals to a 
boy as worth while. It greatly increases the pleasure of the 
summer time and may be the means of saving the life of the 
swimmer or one of his friends. Perhaps there is no experi- 
ence that is more to be feared than to have to stand helpless 
on the bank while a loved one drowns before one's own eyes. 
One could scarcely refrain from springing to the rescue, 
even though unable to swim. 

Climbing Trees 

The dangers that have preyed upon man through the 
ages have largely been conquered. Modern life furnishes 
few opportunities for the practice or culture of courage by the 
adults, but there are many opportunities for the little people, 
and these should not be neglected. Parents should not allow 
their fears to make cowards of their offspring. It is more or 



EXPERIENCES 29 

less dangerous to climb trees, but tree climbing is a nature 
experience that is old to the race, and it has its own message 
in arousing the spirit. The danger involved in climbing is 
not grave and is one of the reasons why children should climb. 
A broken arm will be painful, but there will not be many, and 
this chance is scarcely to be considered against the sense of 
freedom, the spirit of exhilaration that comes from the wav- 
ing boughs, the sunshine and shadow, and the nature romance 
of the tree tops. 

A short time ago I attended a farmer's picnic. As it 
chanced, I sat down under a tree with a group consisting of 
a father, mother, and three children aged about three, five, 
and seven. These children were not allowed to leave the 
group for a moment. If the boy edged off three or four feet 
where he could watch the other boys, he w^as immediately 
jerked back and told: "If you don't sit right here by mamma, 
you will get the worst whipping you ever got in your life." It 
is no surprise that each of the children soon began to say, 
" I want to go home." Such parents ought not to be allowed 
to bring up children, for they will surely deprive them of most 
of the experiences out of which a boy may develop manliness 
and self-reliance, out of which a girl may learn to take care 
of herself. 

Robbing the Nests of Bumblebees 

One of the most valuable experiences of my own childhood 
came from frequent scrimmages with bumblebees. There was 
always a sense of exhilaration from such a combat, because 
one knew that they could strike back, and there was the honey 
for the prize if one succeeded. It is one of the cheapest possi- 
ble methods of developing courage in a boy. The conse- 
quences may be painful, but they cannot be serious. Generally 
we used to rob the nests with paddles, which we made out of 
shingles, and with which we struck the bees as they attacked 



30 PLAY AND RECREATION 

us, though we had several other methods as well. We used 
also to make hives for bumblebees, and usually had three 
or four swarms on hand to observe. 

Collecting Birds' Eggs and building Bird Houses 

The country boy should be taught to regard the birds and 
to know them. It may seem strange to suggest that this 
knowledge and feeling often come from making collections 
of birds" eggs, but I believe it was so in my own case. There 
is scarcely anything more attractive to a child than looking for 
and finding birds' nests. The seeking necessitates an obser- 
vation of the birds and their habits, and the intelligent boy 
will generally read a good bird book at the same time. This 
study is apt to lead to a real knowledge and regard. If the 
boy makes a practice of taking only one egg from the nest, 
the birds will not suffer much, and even if the nest is robbed, 
it will only delay the process long enough for the mother 
bird to lay a new nest of eggs. When we consider how con- 
scienceless we are in robbing the hens, we need not develop 
neurasthenia about the few eggs the children will take in 
making collections. One cat that seizes the mother bird 
upon her nest at night will do more damage than a whole 
community of egg-collecting children. A Parliament of Birds 
might well agree to contribute an egg from every nest for 
the love and regard that comes from the knowledge and the 
staying of the shotgun later. A still better way to teach the 
children to know and regard the birds is to have them build 
bird houses and feed the birds in winter. The great advan- 
tage that the country has over other sections is the constant 
presence of nature, but this is nothing unless farm people 
come to love it in its varied forms. 

Likewise it needs only a little encouragement to get chil- 
dren to collect and press all common wild flowers, or even to 



EXPERIENCES 31 

take up and raise in the back yard many of these varieties. 
These collections will bring an acquaintance with nature and 
a love for it that cannot fail to mean much for country life. 

Dramatic Play 

Every facility should be given to boys and girls to dramatize 
the lives of their seniors, the occupations they see around them, 
and the stories they read. I have often watched with great 
interest the farming operations of four boys, aged from seven 
to ten, who had their log house, which they had constructed, 
and their small farms on a wooded island in a Michigan 
swamp. They battened the cracks in their house with moss 
and pasted up such pictures as they could find. They plowed 
their little fields with a crooked stick in the true primitive 
fashion and fenced them, according to their fancy, with post 
or rail fences from fallen twigs. They built pens and inclos- 
ures for the domestic animals which they whittled out of 
sticks, and they threshed their grain (moss) with threshers 
made from driving nails in a cylinder of wood, which was 
turned with a crank. Play of this kind every country child 
should have. At its best it is no less educative than the 
school. Such play the children will develop more or less for 
themselves, if there is any leader among them. 

The girls love to keep house, dress up, pay calls, keep 
school, etc. ; but even their dramatic play is probably less rich 
than that of the boys. 

The Circus 

The greatest day in the year for the country boy is apt to 
be the day when the circus comes to town. It serves to de- 
velop the faculty of foresight and anticipation as scarcely 
anything else does, and it transforms the sports and amuse- 
ments of the children for a month after it has gone. It has a 



32 PLAY AND RECREATION 

primitive appeal that few other things have. A boy had better 
miss a week of school, in most cases, than miss the circus. 
It is one of the real, maximal experiences that colors so much 
of life before and after. Perhaps the school ought to be dis- 
missed and the children taken at the expense of the district. I 
believe this would be a perfectly legitimate expenditure of edu- 
cational funds ; biut since the exclamations of the children 
furnish half of the pleasure to the parents, it is undoubtedly 
better for all to go as families. 

The Fourth of July 

There is a very general feeling for the " safe and sane 
Fourth " all over the country. Certainly the P^ourth ought to 
be sane, but it must not be taken for granted that safety can- 
not be purchased at too high a price. The things that inten- 
sify and deepen life are far more important to it than safety. 
The country boy cannot afford to lose the "glorious Fourth," 
with its sky rockets and fire crackers, from his experience 
unless he gets something equally appealing to take its place. 
It is far better that a thousand children should suffer that a 
million children may live a larger, deeper, more appealing life, 
than for life to drift on in its wonted monotony for all, without 
anything new or primitive enough to arouse the spirit from 
its accustomed lethargy. Any day that will be anticipated for 
months and remembered for the year is not to be lightly sac- 
rificed on account of danger. This is not to be construed 
as an argument against the better P'ourth, which has come in 
with the play festival and the parade and the general fireworks 
at night, but it is an appeal not to take the old P^ourth away and 
put nothing in its place. The old P^ourth even with its danger 
was better than nothing. I have found the new Fourth in the 
small country towns of parts of the West, but in general it 
has thus' far come to the large cities only. 



PART TWO 
PLAY AT THE RURAL SCHOOL 



PLAY AT THE RURAL SCHOOL 

The play of the first years of hfe is naturally in and about 
the home ; but as the child grows older, he meets his peers 
and does his playing largely at the school. The rural school 
has been as a whole an example of monumental neglect. The 
building has generally been poorly constructed, poorly venti- 
lated, and poorly furnished, the teacher untrained and under- 
paid ; but the most neglected thing about it has been its 
yard. In a hundred-mile drive in most sections one will 
scarcely see anything else that looks so utterly forlorn as the 
little patch of often uneven and nearly always unimproved 
and unmowed ground, on which the children are supposed to 
play. It is perfectly evident from the sites selected, from the 
amount of land purchased, and from the condition in which it 
has been left, that the school directors have not even consid- 
ered the play of the children, or, if they have, they have put 
it aside as unimportant. It is vital to the country that these 
conditions be improved both for the sake of the children, 
who sadly need the play, and for the sake of the community 
at large, that needs it no less. The school must be the gateway 
for the introduction of play into the community. The school, 
therefore, must take thought to itself that its games and ath- 
letics are suitable for the country community. It must make the 
play attractive enough at school so that the children will carry 
the games home and introduce them into the dooryard and 
teach their elders to play as well. The school board must fur- 
nish enough ground and equipment to make play possible, 
and the County Superintendent must see that it is organized, 

35 



CHAPTER IV 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SCHOOL GROUND 

Larger Grounds 

The city schools are now probably acquiring twice as much 
ground for playgrounds as they were ten years ago. In con- 
gested sections these often cost forty or fifty thousand dollars 
an acre. In the country, on the other hand, although a school 
playground could usually be secured for fifty or a hundred 
dollars an acre, and the farming sections are prosperous, 
there has been little improvement. I am writing this from 
a prosperous section of southern Michigan. Land could be 
purchased for less than a hundred dollars an acre for nearly 
every rural school in this county, yet there is not one that 
has an acre of ground. I pass frequently through nearly 
every state in the Union, and I question if one per cent of 
our rural schools have grounds level and large enough for 
baseball. In the school that I attended we always had to play 
in the road or surreptitiously in a neighboring field. I see 
country boys playing ball games of some kind in this way 
wherever I go. Not infrequently the school is at the edge of 
a wood or by the side of a gully or on the edge of a hill or 
swamp, so that no game requiring a good-sized level space 
can be played. Yet the needs of the rural school are simple. 
It requires, for the games that the children are accustomed to 
play, two or three acres of level turf and perhaps an acre more 
for gardening. If the school is also to furnish a baseball 
diamond and picnic grove to the neighborhood, as it should 

36 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SCHOOL GROUND 37 

do in most cases, it should have not less than five acres of 
ground, and the consolidated school should have at least ten. 
There are evidences of a new interest, however, in many 
quarters. The school authorities of Virginia now require that 
the plans for new buildings and grounds be submitted to them 
before the contracts may be let. It is said that they seldom 
give their approval to a school ground of less than three acres. 













A SCHOOL BUILDING DECORATED, IN ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS 



The state of Pennsylvania makes the same requirement, 
and the code provides that hereafter " No school building 
shall be built without a proper playground being provided 
therefor." An acre of ground and more, if possible, should 
be set aside for school purposes (rural schools). 

The educational laws of North Dakota provide: "The 
School Board of any school district may take in the corporate 



38 PLAY AND RECREATION 

name thereof any real property not less than two acres, nor 
exceeding five acres in area chosen as a site for a school- 
house, as provided in this chapter (265)." 

These requirements have become a part of the law during 
the last two years, and there are doubtless other states that 
have made similar' provisions. It seems likely that some- 
thing of the kind may soon become epidemic, as such provi- 
sions are largely copied from one state to the other. The 
sentiment for rural play is in the air of the agricultural col- 
leges ; it can be felt at every great educational meeting. It is 
one of the themes at most rural-life conferences and summer 
Chautauquas. Just those conditions now prevail which are 
likely to lead to a rapid spread of the idea. 

There is a strong sentiment for the consolidation of rural 
schools throughout the country, and a number of states are 
giving state aid to such schools. Their advantages over the 
one-room school of half a dozen pupils are obvious, and their 
rapid extension seems certain; however, there are not more 
than two or three per cent of the country children in such 
schools at the present time, and it will be many years before 
they become general. It is also a question whether this is 
always desirable. Certainly the present generation of coun- 
try children are going to be educated, for the most part, in 
one-room schools, and no far-off possibility of change should 
prevent the school boards from purchasing enough ground to 
conduct a modern school. The new ground will not cost much 
to improve, and it can be sold back when the school is aban- 
doned for as much or more than it cost. If the present increase 
in farm values should continue, it would prove a good ten-per- 
cent investment of school funds. The games and equipment 
here considered will be almost equally suitable for the one- 
room school, the consolidated school, and the village school. 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SCHOOL GROUND 39 

Fences 

It is generally best that the school yard should be fenced. 
The fence serves to keep out the cows ; it makes the discipline 
easier and the yard a place by itself — a sort of institution ; it 
allows the better protection of the apparatus, if there is any ; 
and it tends toward the creation of loyalties. So far as 
country school yards have been fenced in the past, they have 
usually been surrounded by a board fence with a cap board 




A SCHOOL FENCE COVERED WITH VINES IX WINNEBAGO 

COUNTY, ILLINOIS 

at the top. Such a fence serves as a good grand stand from 
which to watch the activities of the yard. It is a serviceable 
fence, but it is relatively expensive and is soon destroyed by 
the pressure of the wind or the children against its broad 
surfaces. The playtime is so short at best at the country 
school that the children should have more active exercise than 
watching others play, and a grand stand is not a great advan- 
tage. A good school fence is an evergreen hedge of privet 
or cedar. This is cheap, tight, and if not beautiful at least 



40 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



not ugly, and the green does not come off. It is a good wind- 
break in cold, blustery weather, and is the hardest fence in 
the world to climb. It will have to be reenforced at first by a 
low wire fence to keep the children from running over it and 
trampling it down, A woven-wire fence that is covered with 




PLAYGROUND OF A RURAL SCHOOL L\ CHERRY VALLEY, ILLLXOIS 
A homemade giant stride in the foreground 

morning glory, moon vine, kudzu, scarlet runner, thunbergia, 
honeysuckle, clematis, Virginia creeper, or rambler roses will 
be more beautiful than any other fence and also cheaper. 



Trees 

Trees should be set out around the grounds, not more than 
three feet from the fence, so as to give a border of shade and 
leave the center open for play. Most trees should be from 
twenty-five to forty feet apart when they mature, as otherwise 
there will not be room for the development of the top. But 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SCHOOL GROUND 41 

it is often wise to place between the trees of a slow-growing 
variety, like sugar maples, a second series of rapid-growing 
trees, like soft maples, basswoods, or cottonwoods. These may 
be cut out as the other trees develop. The maple and the 
basswood both develop very dense tops and furnish abundant 
shade. The basswood grows rapidly and is very fragrant 
when it blossoms in the spring, and it also attracts large num- 
bers of bees. The walnut has a graceful top and furnishes 
an opportunity for a nutting festival in the fall. The hickory 
also gives good shade, turns to a beautiful yellow in the 
autumn, and bears nuts that will be appreciated by the chil- 
dren. The Lombardy poplar is a beautiful tree that grows 
tall even in the open country and throws its shade a long way. 
If Lombardies are planted, they should not be more than eight 
or ten feet apart. If the ground is three acres or more in 
size, it would be well to have in connection with it a small 
picnic grove that can be used by the community for neighbor- 
hood and social gatherings. This should be kept open and 
the trees well trimmed. 

In the Northwest and parts of the West, where the country 
is subject to blizzards and heavy winds, it would be well to 
plant several rows of trees around two or three sides of the 
yard for protection against the wind and snow. School 
grounds should not offer places of seclusion or concealment, 
and shrubbery in general is to be avoided, for both moral 
and disciplinary reasons. 



CHAPTER V 



EQUIPPING THE SCHOOL GROUND 

In many places it probably is not to be expected in the 
beginning that the school directors will purchase the equip- 
ment for the school yard out of the school funds, though this 
should usually be asked and may often be granted. In many 
districts the funds are now adequate for such purchase, and 
if the school officers are sympathetic and the law permits, 

there is no reason 
why it should not 
be done. How- 
ever, in many 
cases the whole 
situation will rest 
with the teacher. 
If the necessary 
equipment is to 
be had, it must 
be she that de- 
velops the means 
to secure it. She need not be discouraged on this account. 
It is quite as well to begin with a little and let it grow 
from year to year. Children will thus learn the proper use 
of each new piece of apparatus as it is installed and will 
really enjoy it more. According to the report of Superintend- 
ent Kern of Winnebago County, Illinois, forty-seven country 
schools in Winnebago County had school socials in 191 2, 
the net proceeds of which were ^1638.27, or a little less 

42 




1 I M I I \| I I I II \ I I I \ 1. X 

VVINUSOK COUNTY, VERMONT 



EQUIPPING THE SCHOOL GROUND 43 

than ^35 for each school. It is not difficult to do this in many 
communities, and this is enough to begin with. It is believed 
that these socials will also be good for the school in creating 
loyalty on the part of the children and bringing the school 
and the community together. The country has too few social 
occasions, and almost any sort of an entertainment will be 
a good thing and will strengthen the hold of the teacher on 
the community. The experience of Winnebago County can 
be duplicated in many other counties in this country if the 
superintendent and the teachers are willing to take the initi- 
ative. If the teacher does not wish to undertake this, oft- 
times enough can be secured to make a beginning by taking up 
a collection. Or perhaps a mothers' club or a school improve- 
ment association can be interested to take the responsibility 
off the teacher's hands, if for any reason this should be 

desirable. 

The Sand Bin 

At the present time there are few country schools that have 
any equipment in their yards. Not much is necessary and 
this should not be expensive, as much, if not all, of it can be 
made by some ingenious member of the community or by 
the children themselves. It would be well, however, to have 
in every school yard a bin of good building sand. This bin 
may well be about six by eight feet in size, the dimensions 
to vary with the number of small children. It should be made 
of strong boards or planks ten inches to a foot high. It does 
not require a bottom, but should have a molding board or 
seat running around the top eight or ten inches wide. It 
should be placed under a tree or in the lee of the building, 
where it will have shade in the warm weather, and should 
be in some quiet part of the ground so as to attract the little 
children away from the area vv^here the active games of the 
larger children are goin£^ on. It is "ood to have the school 



44 PLAY AND RECREATION 

directors furnish the sand bin, but it is still better to have the 
children do it. The older boys should be urged to do the work 
as a form of social service to the little people. A couple of 
ingenious boys would take pride in it and would often be 
able to furnish the material from old lumber lying about the 
farm. In many> sections they would also be able to dig and 
draw the sand. The cost of the sand bin where the children 
do as much of the work as possible should not exceed two 
dollars and may be practically nil. 

Swings 

There should be perhaps half a dozen swings. The frame- 
work should not be more than ten feet high, made of gas 
pipe or of cedar or Georgia pine. It should be set about 
three feet and a half in concrete. If a strip of tin or gas pipe 
is put along the top of the wooden framework, the frame will 
last longer. About three feet and a half of space should be 
allowed for each swing. Six swings may well be put up in one 
section. This frame should be well braced from the sides, and 
the supporting screw hooks should be farther apart than the 
width of the swing seats, in order that they may not wabble. 
The swing hooks and the eyebolts that go through the seat 
should be of hardened steel. A steel thimble should pro- 
tect the rope where it goes through the eyebolt and over 
the swing hook. If there is no one who can splice the 
rope, however, it may be merely run through the swing 
board and up to the hook on the other side, or it may be run 
through the board and knots tied at the bottom. The swing 
should hang about sixteen inches from the ground, and the 
children should be encouraged to swing themselves. The 
framework should be placed parallel with the fence and in 
some retired corner of the ground where there will be little 
danger of the children being struck in passing by. A high 



EQUIPPING THE SCHOOL GROUND 



45 



framework is not recommended, because the large boys and 
girls are apt to preempt such swings to the exclusion of small 
ones, and the swing is dangerous in direct proportion to its 
height. The chief danger is not that children will fall out, 
but that others passing by will be struck by the edge of the 
swing board. If two children are standing up in a swing and 
swinging high, so as to give the swing great momentum, a 




EQUIPMENT IN A WORCESTER PLAYGROUND 
Swings parallel with the fence, as they should be 

little child that is struck in the temple or side of the head will 
certainly be seriously hurt and may be killed. Girls should 
not be allowed to stand up in swings in the school yard, as 
the swinging makes their dresses fly up. If swings are left 
up at night, they are apt to attract the children of the neigh- 
borhood and they may become a nuisance. The swing frame 
should be painted each year.^ While swings are always 

1 For details in the construction of swings consult Playground Tech- 
nique and Playcraft by Arthur Leland, F. A. Bassette Co., Springfield, 
Massachusetts. 



46 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



appreciated by children, they are not necessary in the equip- 
ment of the rural school. Swings offer a purely individualis- 
tic type of play of which the children have or may have an 
abundance at home. The school is the only opportunity they 
have for social play, and such play they greatly need. Social 
and competitive games are incomparably more valuable to 
country children than swings. In equipping the yard, if the 
funds are limited, the swings may well be left to the second 
year. It is not safe to take any chances on the swings. They 
must be well made by some responsible person. 



The Slide 

The athletic slide is a piece of apparatus that is much 
loved by small children. Fifteen or twenty will use one almost 

continuously and 
with great una- 
nimity. They are 
apt to quarrel 
over the swings, 
because they all 
want to use them 
at the same time, 
but there is a 
natural rotation 
in office on the 
slide that prevents quarrels or hard feelings. There are very 
few accidents in its use, and I am of the opinion that it 
does not do nearly so much damage to the clothes as some 
imagine. The child is apt to be squirming about on his seat a 
good share of the time in any case, and the seat is not nearly 
so smooth as the slide. A sixteen-foot slide that is very satis- 
factory can be purchased from Marshall, Field and Company 
of Chicago for thirty dollars. 




A IIOMI'.AIADI', SI, III 



i; IK \l, S( 111 



EQUIPPING THE SCHOOL GROUND 47 

The Horizontal Bar 

At the end of the swing frame or by itself should be a 
horizontal bar. The ground underneath this should be exca- 
vated and filled in with soft sand. The bar is needed for 
chinning contests for the athletic badge, etc. The horizontal 
bar is one of the most-used pieces of apparatus in every out- 
door gymnasium. It gives a fine opportunity to do stunts and 
to show oft". A horizontal bar, however, that is placed over 
a brick pavement or hard ground either will not be used much 
or is likely to result in broken arms. A gas pipe or a fork 
handle run through two augur holes in upright posts will do, 
if nothing better can be obtained. It would be well to have 
three bars placed about five and a half feet, six feet, and six 
and a half feet from the ground. The posts should be not 
more than five or six feet apart. 

Running Track and Jumping Pit 

Along by the fence it would be well to lay off a hundred- 
yard running track about ten or twelve feet wide, unless a 
smooth and unfrequented country road furnishes a satisfac- 
tory substitute. All children like to run races, and it is quite 
as good sport for the boy or girl of ten as it is for the college 
athlete. I am inclined to think, in fact, that the interest in 
running comes to a climax about ten and declines from then 
on. In the city playgrounds they are now putting in regular 
cinder tracks for the small people.' This is not necessary in 
the country, as a dirt track is nearly as good, if the soil is 
satisfactory. The track should be stripped of sod, dragged, 
and then rolled lightly, so as to make it springy. It may 
not be feasible to fix a hundred-yard running track twelve 
feet wide, but it is certainly easy and worth while to make 
a short track sixty or seventy feet long and five or six feet 



48 PLAY AND RECREATION 

wide, with a jumping pit at the end. If the running track 
is made, the jumping pit should be placed at the end of it. 
A take-off board should be set in the earth, level with the 
surface. The earth should be dug out for about fifteen feet 
and some six inches of sand or other soft material filled in. 
The children should purchase or make a pair of jumping 
standards. These will require a substantial base and two 
uprights marked with feet and inches, and a series of holes 
for each inch, through which a peg can be run for supporting 
a string or crossbar. Generally, children enjoy the high ' 
jump more than the broad jump. All of this work can be 
done by the children except, possibly, making the jumping 
standards, and even this is not very difficult for an ingenious 
boy. Work of this sort develops a natural interest which 
makes it the best sort of manual training. So far as it is 
done by the child for the school and the other children, it is 
a practical training in social service as well. 

Baseball and Playground-Baseball Diamonds 

There are few country schools that have a yard large 
enough for baseball, and there are also few at present that 
have enough older boys to play the game if there were an 
abundance of space. There are, however, some such schools, 
and the boys usually want to play if there are only five or six on 
a side. The village schools and new consolidated schools 
oftentimes have an abundance of children for three or four 
nines, and some of them have plenty of room also. Wher- 
ever possible the baseball diamond should be so laid out that 
it can be used by the older boys and young men in the evening 
and on Saturday afternoons. The diamond is simply a square 
ninety feet on a side, set on one corner. It is well to outline 
the bases and the diamond with a pick, as this will keep the 
distances fixed and the game in one place. Meal sacks filled 



EQUIPPING THE SCHOOL GROUND 49 

with sand and sewed up for bases are less productive of 
bruises and profanity than the stone that is gathered from 
the wayside. The boys will make the diamond without much 
urging. If a regular league ball is used, this will cost a dollar 
and a quarter, and a couple of bats will cost fifty cents to a 
dollar more. 

The playground-baseball diamond is thirty-five feet on a side. 
It may well be outlined in the same way as the baseball 
diamond. The ball will cost a dollar, and four clubs may be 
purchased for fifty cents, as an expensive club is not required. 

The Volley-Ball Court 

The volley-ball court should be twenty-five by fifty or thirty- 
five by seventy feet in size. It may well be outlined with a 
pick in the same way as the ball diamonds. Two posts, two- 
by-fours or young saplings, should be so set as to be eight 
feet above the ground, and to divide the ground into two 
square courts when the net is up. Near the top of each 
post should be a strong hook to hold the net. The ball will 
cost from one to five dollars, and the net will cost a dollar 
to two dollars more. These supplies can be obtained from 
A. G. Spalding and Company, 124 Nassau Street, New York, 
from the mail-order houses, or ordered through local dealers. 

The Tether-Ball Equipment 

A tether-ball pole is sold by the athletic supply houses, 
but any pole or straight sapling will do. It should be thir- 
teen feet long and two and a half to three inches in diameter 
at the top. This should be set three feet in the ground, 
leaving ten feet above the surface. Six feet from the ground 
a black band should be painted on the pole or a cloth tied 
around it. There should be a screw eye to hold the cord, 
screwed in the pole four inches from the top. In this should 



50 PLAY AND RECREATION 

be tied the tether-ball cord, so that the ball will hang within 
two and a half feet of the ground. Around the pole a circle 
six feet in diameter should be broadly outlined with a pick, 
and a straight line twenty feet in length should be made to 
bisect the pole and circle. The local stores probably will not 
carry tether balls', and it will be necessary to order them else- 
where. They will cost from six to eight dollars a dozen, prob- 
ably seventy-five cents for one. A very satisfactory tennis racket 
for tether ball can be obtained for a dollar and a half, or four 
rackets for six dollars. If the rackets are furnished by the chil- 
dren and the pole is cut from a neighboring wood, the tether- 
ball equipment will cost only seventy-five cents for the ball. 
It is not wise to leave out the ring, as is often done, because, 
as the children become excited in the game, they tend to 
step close to the pole and strike it with their rackets. This 
usually breaks the racket and makes the game expensive. 
If they have to stay outside the circle they cannot strike the 
pole so easily. A ball will not last more than a month if there 
is much play, and two or, better, half a dozen balls should be 
purchased at one time. 

A Croquet Set 

It will be well to provide the girls with an eight-mallet 
croquet set. This will cost from seventy-five cents to one 
dollar and a half. The girls will set this out themselves, and 
will take care of it if they are made to feel that croquet balls 
and mallets are not intended to play hockey with, and that 
the set belongs to them. Hollow pegs can be secured which 
may be driven into the ground and left there. The wickets 
are inserted in these pegs whenever the set is to be used. 
This keeps the court marked off permanently and reduces to 
a minimum the work and time taken to prepare for play. 
This is especially helpful where the ground is hard. 



EQUIPPING THE SCHOOL GROUND 51 

The Basket-Ball Court 

Basket ball will require two straight posts fifteen or sixteen 
feet long. These had best be of cedar or Georgia pine, and 
should be four or six inches square, set four feet in concrete ; 
but any straight tree of similar dimensions will do, and the 
concrete may be omitted, though of course the posts will not 
last as long. A flat shield of matched or, at least, tight-fit- 
ting boards or of fine-meshed strong wdre 4 by 6 feet in size 
should be nailed to the pole, so that the shield will come to 
the top. The long way of the shield should be vertical to the 
length of the pole. In the middle of this shield, so that it 
will be ten feet from the ground (perhaps a foot lower if the 
children are young), should be placed the baskets. These can 
be purchased from a supply house for $2.75, or a barrel hoop 
will do if there is nothing better available. These posts should 
then be planted seventy feet apart on a piece of level land, with 
the shields and baskets facing each other. The court 3 5 feet 
by 70 feet should be outlined with a pick. The ball will cost 
five or six dollars, according to the one that is purchased. 

The Cost of the Equipment and Supplies 

Very likely to most rural teachers the program thus far 
outlined seems ambitious, perhaps impossible of realization. 
It does certainly require that the teacher should have the 
cooperation of the children, and to some extent the sympathy 
of the neighborhood as well. But if she wishes the coopera- 
tion of the children, what better method can there be than to 
do something in which they are interested ? It must be re- 
membered too that it is quite as important and legitimate a 
part of modern education for the children to learn to work 
for the common welfare as it is to study arithmetic or geog- 
raphy ; that most of the things that they will do will be the 



52 PLAY AND RECRP:ATI0N 

best kind of manual training, and may properly be done in 
school time, if the school directors are in sympathy with the 
work. If a teacher will raise twenty dollars by a school social 
or entertainment, she may well purchase with this money the 
following things : 

One volley ball and net $ 6.00 

Two indoor baseballs 2.00 

Four bats .50 

One croquet set 1.50 

One sand bin 2.00 

Total $12.00 

This would quadruple the play facilities of many a rural 
school and would leave eight dollars to replenish supplies 
when worn out or to cover any unforeseen expense. If the 
cheaper volley ball is used, with a rope instead of a net, as is 
done in Germany, the volley-ball equipment will cost only 
a little over a dollar. The second year, perhaps, tether ball 
might be added, and so this process might be continued until 
the yard is equipped. A closet or cabinet, in which to store 
the supplies, should be provided. By this time a nevv^ spirit 
of cooperation in the school and a new sympathy in the 
neighborhood will undoubtedly have been developed. This 
surely should not seem a difficult or unpleasant task for any 
capable teacher. 

There is sometimes a feeling on the part of the school 
authorities that the children should furnish their own base- 
balls, volley balls, etc. ; but it must be remembered that a 
baseball is not for one child to play with, but for eighteen 
children to play with, and if a boy brings his ball to school 
he has it batted to pieces by the other children. From the 
very nature of the case all such supplies should be communal 
property. It is impossible to have adequate play at any school 
unless the school will furnish the necessary equipment. 



CHAPTER VI 

ORGANIZED TLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 

Some teachers seem to feel that it is beneath their dignity 
to play with the children, and one often hears the old saw 
" Familiarity breeds contempt." Whenever I hear this quo- 
tation in this connection, I always feel like completing it by 
its implied condition. Familiarity reveals you as you really 
are. It leads to contempt if you are contemptible. If famil- 
iarity makes you contemptible to your father and mother,- 
your brothers and sisters, it will make you contemptible to 
the children as well ; but if, on the other hand, you wish to 
be a real friend to the children and have a lasting influence 
over them, there is no other way. The person who sits upon 
a platform of assumed dignity and answers our questions by 
"yes " or " no " and gives us sage advice about our conduct 
has very little influence upon us either in school or outside of 
it. Everywhere the testimony of the teachers who are sympa- 
thetically playing with their children is that this play solves 
the question of discipline. It will not make angels of street 
Arabs of course, but it cuts out almost altogether the vicious 
and willful disorder and makes the sentiment of the school 
the strong ally of the teacher. While Dr. Harris was Com- 
missioner of Education he asked me to make a study of the 
personal influence of the teacher for his annual report. I 
collected about eight thousand papers from high-school stu- 
dents, normal-school students, and eighth-grade students on 
the subject of " The Teacher who influenced Me." While I 
never completed the study, I went over all the papers with 

53 



54 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



some care. There were not five per cent of them which 
referred to the classroom relationships. Apparently the 
teacher who had made a lasting impression was the one who 
had established a more intimate relationship with the pupil 
than that of the classroom. It was the teacher who had 
organized play, who had taken them on walks, who had got 
up picnics and clubs, etc., who had been remembered. 

The country children need this organization of play. Prin- 
cipal Scudder of the New Paltz Normal School says in his 




THE KECESS TLME 



booklet on "The Field Day and Play Picnic for Country 
Children," " Country children do not play enough. Their 
repertoire of games is surprisingly small and inadequate, ex- 
cept where especial efforts have been made to teach them. 
Moreover, their games are strongly individualistic, training 
them for isolated effort rather than cooperation." The school 
is almost the only place where country children can play 
organized games, because it is the only place where there 
are enough of them together. There are some communities 
and schools where the children themselves develop sufficient 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 55 

leadership to have much play that is worth while in certain 
groups, but this will never include all of the children. Per- 
haps for these capable children a suggestion may be all that is 
needed, but for other groups, probably the little children and 
the girls, actual leadership and organization will be required if 
they are to do anything that is worth much. 

Games for LrrxLE Children 

If the teacher has had kindergarten training or is familiar 
with the games, she may safely play all of the more active 
ones with the children in the yard. They are being used in 
the city playgrounds everywhere. In New York City, where 
we once made a rule that no child over eight should come 
into the kindergarten section of the playground except in the 
case of little mothers who were caring for their little brothers 
or sisters, we found that the older girls would often borrow 
a little brother or sister in order to get in. These girls were 
often thirteen or fourteen years old. Some of the most popular 
games for children a little above the kindergarten age are 
Cat and Mouse ; Jacob and Rachel ; Slap Jack ; Whip Tag ; 
Hide and Seek ; Puss in the Corner ; The Miller ; Planner 
in the Dell ; Bean Bag ; London Bridge ; The Needle's Eye ; 
One Old Cat. For further games for children of this age, 
consult "" Games for the Playground, Home School, and 
Gymnasium," by Jessie Bancroft ; " Education by Plays and 
Games," by G. A. Johnson ; " Play," by Emmett D. Angell ; 
" Popular P^olk Games," by Mari H. Hofer. 

Games that are popular with children a little older, and 
which require no apparatus and little teaching, are Blind 
Man's Buff ; Drop the Handkerchief ; Duck on a Rock ; 
Three Deep ; Last Couple Out ; Bull in the Ring ; Fox and 
Geese (in the winter) ; Pom Pom Pull Away ; Prisoner's 
Base ; Captain Ball ; Dodge Ball ; Catch Ball ; Battle Ball. 



56 PLAY AND RECREATION 

These last four games are played with a volley ball or a 
basket ball, preferably with a volley ball. These are all 
standard games that every child should know. 

The Teaching of Games 

The same principles apply to teaching games as to teach- 
ing anything else. Whatever is taught should be taught thor- 
oughly until the children know it. A new game should not 
be brought in until they are thoroughly familiar with the 
old and have begun to tire of it. The process of learning a 
game is not interesting. 

Need of New Games 

The games of the little children, while important to the 
school, are less important in a large way to the community, 
because they are left behind by the growing children and will 
not be carried from the school into life. The school must 
start a set of athletic enthusiasms that will give recreation 
and safeguard the leisure of later years. It must seek to 
break the isolation and build up the social life of the country 
by games that call for a number of participants and that 
mature men and women will play with pleasure. Even a 
superficial observer must be aware that we have no such 
games at present. 

We have a tradition that baseball and football are our 
national games. However, a moment's thought will tell any 
one that for the most part these games are played by school- 
boys only, and that we as a people have no national game 
except professional baseball, in which we participate from the 
bleachers. We need very much a series of games in which 
girls and adults will take as active an interest as schoolboys do 
in baseball. Baseball and football cannot be considered in 
this connection, because our population is rapidly becoming 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 57 

an urban population, and both of these games take much 
room. Both .baseball and football are unsuited to girls and 
adults because they are too violent, and football is unsuited to 
the majority of the student body for the same reason. We 
need to teach our children games in the schools which will 
be pursued later, so that leisure may not mean dissipation. 
Leisure is going to be a larger part of life in the next gener- 
ation than it has been in the past, and the schools must see 
that this does not mean that the next generation is going to 
be more dissipated. Liberty H. Bailey of Cornell University, 
Dean of the State Agricultural College of New York, says : 
" Better technical farming and a more carefully organized 
farm plan will give the farmer the time that he needs for 
other interests. In the future he will be able to command at 
least one day a week, aside from Sunday, for reading, study, 
vacation, and other forms of recreation." One needs only to 
glance at the raising of corn to see how much the farmer's 
time is being economized. To-day it is certainly cheaper in 
many localities for the farmer to have his plowing done by a 
steam plow than to do it himself, if he cannot afford such a 
plow. Corn is now largely planted with a drill ; it is cultivated 
with a horse cultivator that tills one or two rows at a time ; it 
is coming to be cut by a horse cutter and husked by a machine 
husker. The same circle of labor-saving appliances have al- 
ready become nearly universal for wheat, oats, rice, and beans. 
The farmer to-day needs to be a mechanic, a stockman, a 
merchant. He must know the sort of crops to raise on his 
farm and where and when to sell them. He cannot keep his 
nose on the grindstone or his feet in the furrow all the time 
and hope to be successful as the man of affairs which the times 
demand. The great drawback to life in the countiy is its iso- 
lation, and the cure of its isolation is the development of its 
social and recreational life. The school must do its share. 



58 PLAY AND RECREATION 

There are two games that have become popular in the last 
few years that are well suited to the needs of the American 
people for recreation. They are well suited because they re- 
quire but little space, because they are played by boys and 
girls and by men and women with equal pleasure, and because 
they offer the sort of exercise, the social opportunities, and 
the mental relaxation that are needed. These two games are 
volley ball and playground baseball. 

Volley Ball 

Volley ball I believe to be the very best game we have. It 
is a game that is played with a sheepskin or horsehide ball a 
little smaller and a little lighter than a basket ball. In Ger- 
many a similar game, fanstball, is played over a rope ; in this 
country volley ball is usually played over a tennis net that is 
stretched so that the top of the net is seven feet and a half 
from the ground The indoor size of the court is 25 by 50 
feet. Outdoors it is often played on a court 35 by 70 feet, 
or even larger. Any number of players may participate, but 
matched games are usually played with five or six on a side. 
The ball is served over the net with the palm of the hand, 
as one would serve in tennis. The server stands with one 
foot on the back line. Those on the opposing side strike 
the ball while it is in the air and return it in this way to the 
other court. If the ball that is served is not returned or is 
knocked out of bounds, it scores one for the server. If the 
opponents knock it back and the serving side does not re- 
turn it, the server is out. Twenty-one points are a game 
according to Spalding rules, but it is sometimes played with 
fifteen-minute halves, as in basket ball. Volley ball is our 
best school game, because it takes little space for many 
players and is played by the girls as much as the boys. 
Both girls and boys will begin to play it four or five years 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 59 

younger than they will basket ball and will continue to play 
it forty years longer. A whole class may be taken into the 
yard to play volley ball, as a city class might have gym- 
nastics. The net is seven feet and a half high, and the ball 
is often twenty feet in the air. The player must use both 
hands to play skillfully, so he must keep his head and his 
shoulders back and his chest out. Volley ball is the best cor- 
rective that we have for the bad postures of the schoolroom 




A VOLLEV-BALL GAME 



and the round and stooped shoulders which often distinguish 
the country boy. Almost the only game that the business 
men are playing in the Y.M.C.A. gymnasiums is volley 
ball. So far as college faculties are playing any game outside 
of tennis, it is generally volley ball. Basket ball does not 
meet this need of a game that will safeguard the later years, 
because it is not played after school days are over. Volley 
ball in a small rural school may often be the only team game 
that there are enough of the older children to play, and it is 



6o PLAY AND RECREATION 

a game at which the girls are at no considerable disadvantage 
in playing with boys. It must not be thought on this account, 
however, that the children are going to be eager for the game 
at first. It is one of the laws of play that it is independent 
of all thoughts of advantage. Children want to participate in 
the games they see and hear about, and no game is very in- 
teresting until some little skill is acquired. In introducing 
volley ball the teacher will have to take part with the chil- 
dren. After a little skill is acquired there are few games that 
are more popular, but during the period of learning they 
need all the encouragement and help they can have. Volley 
ball is a good game with three or even with two on a side, 
but it is also good with fifteen or twenty on a side. 

Playground Baseball 

Indoor, or playground, baseball is similar to regular base- 
ball except that it is played with a large, soft ball from four- 
teen to seventeen inches in circumference, and the bases are 
thirty-five feet apart instead of ninety, as in regular baseball. 
The only important differences in the rules are that the ball 
must be pitched underhand and that the runner may not 
leave his base until the ball has passed the batter or been 
struck. The advantages of this game are much the same as 
the other. It is played by both boys and girls, it is not dan- 
gerous in a crowded playground, it is enjoyed by much younger 
children than is the standard game, and adults will continue 
to play it long after baseball has become too strenuous for 
them. It is a good thing for the girls to play with the boys, 
as they will thus learn the rules more rapidly and they will 
borrow from the boys some of the play spirit which they are 
so apt to lack. The criticisms of the boys will also stimulate 
the listless ones. The boys will probably think that play- 
ground baseball is not the real thing at first, and the girls will 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 6 1 

regard it as a boys* game. There will not be much enthusiasm 
in the beginning unless the teacher plays with them. I have 
seen places where the children have been furnished with 
the equipment and told about the game, without their doing 
anything but throw the ball around for the whole summer 
until the teacher began to play, when it took only two or 
three days before several teams were organized and a vigor- 
ous interest was manifested. Women teachers often hesitate 
to play, fearing that they will appear ridiculous, but they 




A GAME OF INDOOR BASEBALL 



need not be discouraged from thinking they may do fairly 
well. Among several hundred students in playground base- 
ball at the University of Utah last summer, the best player 
was a woman teacher, though most of the participants were 
men. The boys will not expect very much of their lady 
teacher in baseball and will be the more surprised and re- 
spectful if they find her an expert. Playground baseball and 
volley ball are also much easier to umpire than baseball and 
basket ball, and there is less danger of unfair or rough con- 
duct or quarreling. It does not take long to make the children 
enthusiastic. A matched 2:ame or two with another school 



62 PLAY AND RECREATION 

will help greatly. If a rural school contains only fifteen to 
thirty pupils, it is not likely that there will be eighteen boys 
or even ten girls or boys of baseball or basket-ball age, for in 
both of these games the girls will have to play separately from 
the boys to have much fun. Under these circumstances the 
advantages of haVing a game which the children enjoy at an 
early age, and where the girls and boys can play together, are 
apparent. Of course there is a question in the minds of many 
people whether the boys and girls should play together any- 
way. In the city the girls' yard is usually separate from the 
boys' yard. This separation is not feasible, however, in the 
country school or in the country community. The number of 
children in any given area is so limited that the boys and 
girls are practically compelled to play together if they are to 
play at all. I am not able to see any moral dangers arising from 
boys and girls playing baseball or volley ball together. It is 
the loafing and sequestration of boys and girls that is likely 
to be morally dangerous. A vigorous competition in which 
girls are at no considerable disadvantage is likely to create 
a more healthy relationship between them and to suppress 
some of the sentimentality of girls in the early giggling age 
in a way that will be advantageous. 

Long Ball or Long Town 

Long ball is played with a regular indoor baseball. It differs 
from baseball in that there is only one base, which corresponds 
to second base. Whichever way the ball may go, or if it is 
only touched, it is a fair hit. All fouls are eliminated. The 
batter is out on a caught fly or the third strike or when he is 
hit or touched with the ball in passing to or from the long 
base. Any number of players may assemble on the long base 
and wait their chance to run in, but if all the players get on 
the long base at once, the side is out. The score is the same 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 63 

as in baseball, and three outs retire the side. This game has 
the added charm over baseball of throwing at the runner. As 
there are no fouls, the game is very fast. As there are no 
set positions, all players are fielders except the pitcher and 
catcher, and there may be any number on each side, though 
of course the game will not be as vigorous with a large 
number as with a small number. 

Tether Ball 

Tether ball is probably the best game that can be played in a 
limited space by two players. From its nature it is especially 
suited to the small rural school. A post two or three inches 
in diameter and thirteen feet tall is set three feet in the ground. 
Six feet above the ground there is a black band around the 
pole. Attached to the top of the pole is a tether ball (a tennis 
ball inside a netting sack). A line twenty feet long drawn 
through the pole divides the ground into courts, and a circle 
six feet in diameter keeps the players away from the pole. 
On opposite sides of the pole stand the contestants with ten- 
nis rackets. The server takes the ball in his hand and strikes 
it as hard as he can, seeking to wind it up around the pole 
above the black line. His opponent on the opposite side 
seeks to wind up the ball in the opposite direction. Players 
may not step over the dividing line or inside the circle. The 
ball is up in the air most of the time and tends to keep the 
head up and shoulders back. The player must run back and 
forth over the space allotted to him and often jump as high 
as he can in order to reach the ball. There is fully as much 
exercise in fifteen minutes of tether ball as there is in an 
hour of tennis. When some little skill is acquired, it is one 
of our most interesting games. 

In Washington, from the time our playgrounds were opened 
in the morning until they were closed at night, there were 



64 PLAY AND RECREATION 

always two or three children standing in line to use the tether 
ball, but the children left to themselves without encourage- 
ment do not learn the game well enousih to make it interestinar. 



Croquet and Tennis 

Croquet and tennis are both well adapted to the rural school 
and especially the consolidated rural school. They have also 
the great advantage that they are suited to the home as 
well, and playing these games at school should do much 
to introduce them into the community — an argument that 
applies also to volley ball and tether ball. When one looks 
at the large problems of social welfare and social needs, at the 
isolation of the country home, and at the frequent resulting 
dreariness of rural life, is there not reason for saying that it 
is quite as important that the children should acquire whole- 
some recreations in the school as that they should learn geog- 
raphy and grammar ? If the farmer and the farmer's wife 
have not played enough for their own good or the good of 
their children or the country, what better thing can the rural 
school do than to instill into the children an enthusiasm for 
sports that will be carried into the home and the community ? 
This is not sentiment but common sense. Few other things 
can do so much to keep the boys and girls on the farm. 

Basket Ball 

Basket ball is not a good game for a strictly rural school, 
because it is not played with much interest by children under 
thirteen years of age. The exercise is violent and a severe 
strain upon the heart. The boys' rules are different from the 
girls' rules, so that they cannot well play together. There are 
not many rural schools that have ten girls or ten boys that 
are old enough and strong enough to play. However, in 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 65 

village schools and in consolidated rural schools it is probably 
wise to make provision for basket ball. It has the advantage 
of an enthusiasm already created, and it is easy to form teams. 

Play for the Girls 

The older girls are really the great problem in organizing 
recreation anywhere. The boys will play a good deal under 
almost any conditions, but the girls do not play anything of 







BASKET BALL 



much value without a good deal of encouragement. Girls are 
handicapped by their clothes and by all sorts of restrictive 
customs. The boys are constantly encouraged in their sports, 
but the girls are usually discouraged. The girl comes up to 
puberty with only three fourths the lung capacity of the boy 
of the same age. Whatever the school can do to make play 
more interesting for the girl, it should do. 



The Standard Athletic Test 

One of the best things that has happened to athletics in this 
countr}^ was the establishing of the standard test by the Public 
School Athletic League of New York City. This test says that 
every boy under thirteen who can run sixty yards in eight and 



66 PLAY AND RECREATION 

three-fifths seconds, chin a bar four times, and jump five feet 
nine inches standing shall have the standard button of the 
League. The great advantage of the test is that it is non- 
competitive, and the winning of the button by one does not in- 
terfere with its being won by others. It sets a standard, and 
we all tend to live up to a standard when we know what it is. 
It is generally supposed that country boys are strong and that 
they will not need practice to perform such feats as these ; 
nevertheless, it did not prove so in Ulster County, where the 
test was tried. There was scarcely a boy who was able to do 
the three things without practice. It is probable that the same 
results would be found elsewhere. Country boys in general 
would be able to do the chinning very likely, but not the two 
other stimts. In order to get up much enthusiasm for this 
test there must be a place for chinning, a horizontal bar if 
possible, and a sixty-yard running track that is marked off. A 
stop watch will be an advantage, and it is well to have a place 
five feet nine inches long laid out for the broad jump, so that 
they can practice when they wish. If an enthusiasm for this 
test can be aroused, most of the boys will come up to the 
requirements after practice. 

Interschool Athletics 

The country school is the best place in the world for ath- 
letics of the intercollegiate or interschool type. In our city 
schools they are always objectionable, because they lead to 
the development of a team of nine players with a thousand 
rooters on the grand stand. The players are overstimulated 
and overtrained and not infrequently overbruised, and their 
school work suffers. The cheering has not been good exer- 
cise for the student body, and the team has had more than 
it needed. The country school will not be subject to this 
criticism. If it organizes a first and second team in playground 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 6-] 

baseball, it will probably use all of its available material, and 
all will get the training. The country boy and girl are made 
diffident and backward by their isolated life. They need the 
experience of going over to another school, meeting other 
children, and having contests with them. The country school 
has in general created no loyalty or school spirit. The easiest 
way is through a contest with another school. We have 
deemed that intercollegiate contests were necessary in our 




THE COUNTRY ROAD AS A RACETRACK 

colleges in order to maintain the interest of the student bodv, 
and probably they have been in the past. Most of the organ- 
ized play of England is in the schools located in the country, 
and it has been within the school itself without many, if any, 
outside contests. But athletic enthusiasm is old in England, 
and athletics are required in the curriculum. It would cer- 
tainly be to the advantage of the rural school to hold contests 
with other schools. 

It is not impossible that the children should walk to these 
meets, but it would be better that they should be taken. 



68 PLAY AND RECREATION 

especially if they are to participate in contests. If it be feas- 
ibl^e to transport the children of a township to a central school 
building every day, it should not be impossible to transport 
them occasionally to an athletic meet, even though one or two 
farmers were hired to take a hayrack load of children to the 
tourney. One or two such meets will be sufficient to make 
the enthusiasm run high and set the children to training. 

Time for Play 

It may seem difficult to find time for play at the rural 
school ; but there are available the noon intermission of an 
hour, as most of the children do not go home for their dinners 
as they do in the city, and two recesses of fifteen minutes 
each, it is not well to take violent exercise after a hearty 
meal, but the children do not bring hearty meals with them 
to school. They do not take more than ten or fifteen minutes 
to eat, and this leaves at least half an hour for good play. It 
will be to the advantage of the lessons to get the children 
out for the recesses also. But many country children will 
come to school at eight o'clock if there is anything interest- 
ing to do before school begins, and they will often stay for an 
hour after school is over. The small children are not going 
to study more than two or three hours a day, and they might 
well be allowed to go out and play as soon as they have their 
lessons, on condition that they will not disturb the school 
with their noise. This would put in the hands of the teacher 
an effective incentive to secure the faithful study of lessons, 
and would probably yield better scholastic results than the five- 
hour school day. At the same time it would give the children 
the outdoor exercise and life which they need. An hour of 
organized play a day, on an average, is part of the school 
curriculum in every grade below the fourth in New York City. 
There is an hour and a half of organized play a day in the 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 69 

first six grades of the public schools of Gary, and many other 
cities are taking up the movement. The German folk school, 
on an average, devotes an hour a day to gymnastics and play 
in every grade. The preparatory school of England has about 
two and a half hours a day of required play. It would be no 
anomaly in the educational practices of the world if two or 
three hours a week were set aside from the school day to 
play games that are worth while. 

Walking Trips 

Probably we Americans are more adverse to walking than 
any other people. If we have two or three blocks to go in 
the city, we take the streetcar, and in the country we drive. 
In Scotland one will often meet a good-sized party out walk- 
ing in the rain, and in England whole schools often go off 
for long trips. The school journey is a part of the program 
in Germany and Switzerland. In Germany these trips often 
cover a hundred miles or more and take a week or more of 
time. Walking is the best way in the world to become familiar 
with the country, to learn its resources and possibilities, and 
to develop a love for nature. It is excellent exercise. The 
teacher in the rural school is greatly handicapped by the dif- 
ferent ages of her children in attempting such ventures, and 
she also will have to consider the attitude of her board of 
directors toward it. It would be wise, if the school directors 
agree, to send the little children home at noon on Friday in 
pleasant weather, if they can go home by themselves, and take 
the older children to some place of interest not more than 
five miles away. There are such places in nearly every neigh- 
borhood, and it is surprising how few of them the children 
see by themselves. It may be the city hall, the public library, 
or museum in a neighboring town ; or it may be a mountain, 
a river, a historic or literary landmark ; or a fine herd of cattle, 



70 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



a fine farm, a field of sugar beets, or some other crop that is 
new to the children ; or it may be a flourmill or sawmill, a lime 
kiln, a stone quarry, a lumber camp, or colliery. There are 
few neighborhoods that are without some of these objects of 
interest, A visit to them is quite as educational as the school 
studies, — it is travel and experience, — and these the coun- 
try child greatly needs. If the trip be to a neighboring acad- 
emy or technical school, or country high school, it may lead 




A SKIING PARTY 

Winter trips on skis are often taken by German children 

some of the children to continue their education further. 
The walk will develop the social life of the school and the 
personal relationships with the teacher. Along the way col- 
lections of leaves and flowers may be made, and the children 
may be taught to observe the birds, the formation of water- 
sheds, water channels, beautiful views, etc. Such a journey 
might well be made the prize of good conduct and lessons 
during the week. On Saturday it would be well to have an 
occasional picnic to which the parents also are invited, and 
where, besides a picnic dinner, there might be ball games 
and athletics. 



ORGANIZED PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD 71 

The Schoolhouse as a Social Center 

There is a great movement at present for the wider use of 
school buildings. This movement holds as the first article of 
its creed that to use public property only five hours a day 
for five days a week and eight or nine months a year, when 
it is possible to use it profitably much longer, is folly. It is 
known as the Recreation Center, or Social Center, Movement. 
Farm communities do not get together enough for social, 
educational, or civic purposes. There is more need for the 
wider use of the country schoolhouse than of any other school 
building. In the city there are the theaters and church socials 
and public lectures and entertainments. It is hard at any 
time to select a night when there will not be many things 
going on. During the late fall and winter the farmer's duties 
are not usually very pressing and he has plenty of time for 
reading and social and educational purposes. Every rural 
school should be first of all a center for the distribution of 
books to the community. The old-time school had a number 
of social uses that it seems to have lost. In it were held the 
singing school, the country debates, and the spelling match 
at least, and all of these were social events of importance to 
the community. This topic will be treated in detail in the 
later part of the book. 



CHAPTER VII 

SCHOOL ^EXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUES 

These are two of the more recent school movements that 
are now lending a new interest to school life and country 
life. It is very difficult to say how general they are, but school 
exhibitions have been held in many of the rural schools of 
Iowa, Oklahoma, and North Dakota, at least, for some time. 
In most places the exhibitions are at the school and are of 
the products raised by the children who attend the school. It 
is difficult to give a general account of a work which as yet 
has no historian. I choose, rather, to give an account of it 
as carried on in the states of Virginia and Oklahoma. 

County School Fairs in Virginia 

So far as I know, the county school fair originated m 
Campbell County, Virginia, in 1908. These fairs were held 
in 191 1 in twenty-five different counties of that state. Per- 
haps a better name for them would be children's fairs, for 
they are an attempt to exhibit the work and play of children 
outside as well as inside the school. These fairs are rapidly 
growing in attendance and popularity, and the Campbell 
County fair is now housed in a permanent building. 

During primitive times fairs were among the most im- 
portant means of education, and even to-day there are few 
things that are more educative than attending a well-planned 
exhibition along the line of one's especial interest. The 
World's Fair in Chicago was one of the greatest educational 
influences that has come to this country. Even the ordinary 

72 



SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUBS Tl 

county fair, mismanaged and undeveloped as it is, has much 
of value for children. Probably the fair idea is more appli- 
cable to them than it is to adults. They have a great natu- 
ral curiosity. They are observ-ing and remember very much 
better the things they see than the things they read about. 
I am confident that these Virginia fairs are stimulating every 
phase of child development in the counties where they are held. 
I quote from the report of the State Superintendent of 
Schools for Virginia the following account of one of 
these fairs : 

They came in large groups, often by schools, bedecked with their 
school colors, waving school banners, giving their school yells, and 
singing their school songs. It was the gala day for the county public 
schools, and even early in the morning the holiday spirit was in the air. 

By ten o'clock, between 3000 and 4000 people had assembled at the 
School Fair exhibit hall. The entrance to this hall was then thrown 
open, and this vast throng of people surged in. Their eyes fell upon an 
unique exhibit — different from anything they had ever seen at any 
other fair. Near the entrance was a long table loaded down with loaves 
of bread, biscuit, cakes, pies, home-made candy, butter, jellies, pickles, 
canned peaches, pears, and tomatoes. On another table was the Domestic 
Art Exhibit — shirtwaists, aprons, handkerchiefs, and a large group of 
dolls tastefully dressed in the latest fashion by the school children of the 
primary classes. On another table was the Flower and Nature Study 
Exhibit — ferns, chrysanthemums, geraniums, dahlias, and collections of 
wild flowers. Further down the hall was the table containing the Agri- 
cultural Exhibit. On this table were piled ears of corn, ears of popcorn, 
pumpkins, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, and black-eye peas. In a 
corner was the Manual Training Exhibit, containing book-cases, writing 
tables, picture frames, brooms, farm rakes, axe handles, shuck door-mats, 
baskets, and rabbit "gums." 

Nor had the literary work of the school been neglected. A large 
space was occupied by this department ; on a table were a number of 
carefully prepared compositions. They were not upon such abstract 
subjects as " Intellect," " Faith," " Patience," but dealt with concrete, 
practical themes, such as " Good Roads," " The Value of Scientific 
Methods of Farming," " How to Make a Country Home Comfortable 



74 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



and Attractive," " The Cause and Prevention of Consumption," " The 
House Fly a Menace to Health." There vi'ere also numerous specimens 
of writing and drawing, and the walls of one side of the hall were 
decorated with skilfully drawn maps of the county and the State. 

And remember that all the exhibits were prepared by the School 
Children of the county. 

After viewing the exhibit, the large crowd gathered in the court- 
house yard, and listened to two short addresses, delivered from the 
courthouse steps. 



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A SCHOOL FAIR IN WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS 

Next, an old-fashioned spelling match was held. Each school was 
represented by its best spellers, and the rivalry was very keen. 

After the lunch-hour came the most interesting and imposing feature 
of the day's program — the School Fair parade. All of the school chil- 
dren of the county were formed in line of march, grouped by individual 
schools and school districts. Each school was led by its teachers. All 
the pupils of the school were wearing the school colors, many were 
carrying pennants, and floating high above their heads was a large 
banner bearing the name of the individual school. Some of these names 
were unusual, to say the least. This immense parade of over a thousand 
school children, led by a local brass band, waving their banners and 
pennants, singing their school songs, and giving school yells, marched 



SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUBS 75 

through the streets of the usually quiet country town. It was the most 
inspiring sight that could be witnessed — this happy, buoyant army of 
the future men and women of a great Commonwealth ! 

The parade then returned to the courthouse steps, where the prizes 
were announced and awarded. They next marched to the athletic field 
(the local race-track), where the best athletes of each school contested in 
the 1 00-yard dash, the 220-yard dash, the high jump, the baseball throw, 
and the relay race. 

Such a fair as this cannot fail to do very much to make 
country hfe more interesting to cliildren. The fair itself will 
be a pleasing spectacle — one of the greatest events of the 
year for them. The anticipation and participation in such an 
event will brighten many a dreary hour. The contests with 
the other children, and the suggestion of things to do and 
make, will be very stimulating. It is sure to lead to closer ob- 
servation and better-directed effort. To the children who enter 
the competitions there will be a vigorous motive for excellence 
that has been largely lacking from the ordinary school work. 

The exhibitions of potted flowers will surely do something 
to make the homes of Virginia more beautiful, and to give 
the children a greater appreciation of beauty everywhere. 
The domestic-science exhibition will make the girls ambi- 
tious to excel in the household arts, and the exhibits of what 
the children have made in the way of wagons, water wheels, 
etc. will give many helpful suggestions to other children, 
and make them more resourceful in entertaining and helping 
both themselves and their parents. It will tend to develop 
the ingenuity of the entire county. 

Various forms of observation are encouraged. The follow- 
ing seems to me one of the best ways to stimulate a love for, 
and an intimate knowledge of, the birds : 

Record of iiiigratoiy birds. Each competitor for prizes offered for 
" best record of migratory birds of county " must begin in February to 
keep a record of the migratory birds observed by him at his station, 



^6 PLAY AND RECREATION 

according to the form required by the " migratory schedule " prepared 
by the Bureau of Biological Survey of the United States Department of 
Agriculture, a copy of which will be furnished by the Department to 

every teacher in county. Pupils must observe and record the birds 

seen from day to day until the close of the spring migration in June. 

All who have made creditable observations and records should, on 
or before the 15th day of July, apply to the Division Superintendent for 
a migration schedule upon which to transfer their record. The Depart- 
ment, at Washington, has promised to furnish blank forms for good 
records, with the understanding that the records are to be sent to the 
School Fair, and from thence sent back to the Department for use there. 

These records are put on exhibition at the fair and awarded 
prizes on the same basis as the other exhibits. 

The spelhng matches held at tlie fair will help to revive 
this once honored institution in tlie various country schools 
throughout the county. 

The school parade might easily be developed into a pageant, 
which would be one of the greatest annual events in the 
county, and might be made to teach history more effectively 
than books, if each school were responsible for the depiction of 
one historic event, and a number were represented in series. 
If these events were of local history, it is always one of the 
easiest ways of creating patriotism and civic loyalty. 

Perhaps along the lines of games and play there is the 
greatest opportunity, for such competitions might well serve 
to introduce into the schools all over the county the games 
that are most suitable for school use and for the country com- 
munity as well. The countryside has had far too little play, 
and especially has there been too little play at the farm home ; 
such a fair might well set all the children and ultimately the 
whole community to playing, as a strolling circus sets all the 
children to doing circus tricks. I believe that such fairs will 
add immensely to the educational and social value of country 
life for children and adults. 



SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUBS 77 

Perhaps it might be simpler to have a children's section 
of the ordinary county fair, or a children's day that is really 
given over to the children. In whatever way it is done, it 
will be worth while if it leads not merely to the attendance 
of the children, but to a genuine exhibition of their work. 
It is probable that a day given over in this way to them — 
to their athletics and other events — would draw a larger 
attendance to the fair than an exhibit of pumpkins. 

Either just before or just after its county exhibition each 
school should hold a local exhibition of its work at the school- 
house. If this were held on a Friday afternoon and evening, 
it would make a pleasing social occasion for the adults of the 
community, and the praise and criticism of the neighborhood 
would be very stimulating to the children. Ten such local 
fairs were held in Barnes County. North Dakota, last year. 

Country communities are isolated and country boys and 
girls are diffident and backward because of a lack of social 
experience and a limited acquaintance. Almost anything that 
will broaden this experience and acquaintanceship will be a 
good thing. The great difficulty with the school work has 
been that to the children it is not directly helpful, and it is 
not at all evident to them that most of the things that they 
are learning will ever be of any use. If the work is to be ex- 
hibited, it furnishes a motive for excellence that did not exist 
before. This will make the work more interesting. The fair 
itself will be more educative to children than one where the 
products are raised by adults ; this fact also lends it a new 
interest and gives it the constant suggestion " Why should 
I not do this .'' " 

It was estimated by the State Superintendent of Virginia 
in his report for 191 2 that fifty counties in his state would 
hold county fairs in that year. The work is being taken up 
this year by the state of Kentucky also. 



78 PLAY AND RECREATION 

Boys' and Girls' Industrial Clubs 

One of the most hopeful movements for the improvement 
of country hfe that has arisen during the last few years is 
the movement for boys' and girls' clubs. I regard these 
clubs as very hopeful for three reasons, all of which seem to 
me worthy of consideration. First, they are giving the boys 
and girls who take part a very valuable social opportunity. 
A corn club merely as a club is worth while, if its only pur- 
pose were sociability and the discussion of problems and the 
learning to cooperate. It is to be expected that the boys who 
have worked together in the corn and other clubs will be the 
stanch members of the grange and other farmers' organiza- 
tions later ; that they will make possible the type of rural 
cooperation which the times so insistently demand. Second, 
the rural school has in the past been in no way adapted to 
the country. It was simply a general school, as well fitted for 
a manufacturing or mining town or a great city as the farm. 
These boys' and girls' clubs are actually doing what the rural 
school has failed to do ; they are giving the children of the 
farm a real education in rural life and its problems, which 
is not only more practical than the education of the rural 
school, but which is ultimately more educative as well, as it is 
not teaching things that will be soon forgotten, but things 
that will be remembered. It is planting seeds that will grow 
and develop in the mind all through life. The final reason 
that I would give for thinking these clubs very important is a 
corollary of the second — that they are making country life 
more interesting to children, and thus are preventing an un- 
due migration to the city. The county or state that has none 
of these clubs should take thought of itself. 

The development west of the Mississippi River has been 
very rapid during the last four or five years. I cannot do 



SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUBS 79 

better than to make these quotations from the recent bulletin 
of the A. and M. College of Oklahoma. 

Boys'' and girh^ cliibs^ ^1. and M. College. The Oklahoma boys' 
and girls' clubs have been organized by authority of the Oklahoma 
State Board of Agriculture, and are conducted by the Oklahoma Agri- 
cultural and Mechanical College in cooperation with the county super- 
intendents of public instruction and teachers as a practical feature in 
teaching the elementary principles of agriculture and domestic science. 




A POTATO-PARING CONTEST CONDUCTED IN AVRIGHT COUNTY, IOWA, 
BY O. H. BENSON 

Judged on three points: speed, i^o^ skill, 30; weight of peeling, 40 



During the past year the A. and M. College organized 1300 local clubs 
and fifty-five county clubs with a membership of 25,000 boys and girls. 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction R. H. Wilson, in a letter 
to county superintendents, says : 

I wish to invite and urge all county superintendents to cooperate with 
the management of the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, 
and recommend that you take an active interest in presenting this matter 
to the teachers of your county and urge upon them that they take an active 
part in organizing the Boys' and Girls' Agricultural and Domestic Science 
Clubs in their schools. 



8o PLAY AND RECREATION 

The purposes of the Oklahoma boys' and girls' agricultural clubs 
briefly stated are as follows : 

1 . To acquaint the boys and girls of Oklahoma with the state system 
of agriculture and industrial education extending from the common 
schools through the district agricultural schools to the A. and M. College. 

2. To vitalize the studies for children in the common schools. 

3. To develop in due course a system of education in common schools 
suited to the children of the common people. 

4. To lead men and boys to study farm problems on their own 
farms. 

5. To lead women and girls to study home and family problems in 
their own homes. 

6. To awaken our people to the importance, the advantages, and the 
possibilities of farm life. 

7. To inculcate a class sentiment and a sense of independence in the 
minds of farm-reared children. 

8. To organize in the rising generation the farm community as an 
independent social unit. 

MembenJiip. There are three classes of members in the Oklahoma 
boys' and girls' agricultural clubs. 

1 . Local club members. 

2. County club members. 

3. State club members. 

All boys or girls not under nine (9) nor over eighteen (18) years of 
age are eligible for membership in the Oklahoma boys' and girls' agri- 
cultural clubs, and when their applications are properly approved by their 
local teacher or president of the school board as supervisor, they may 
receive individual membership certificates, secure literature, and enter 
various local, county, district and state contests arranged for members 
of these clubs. 

Local clubs. A handsome charter will be issued to five or more 
members in any school district who wish to organize a local club when 
they make application on the regular blanks and adopt a constitution 
and code of by-laws approved by the A. and M. College. The teacher, 
the clerk of the school board, or some good, practical farmer should act 
as local manager or supervisor of the club. The supervisor should ar- 
range for a school fair some time during the school session and pro- 
vide suitable local contests and prizes under the direction of the A. and 
M. College. 



SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUBS 8i 

County clubs. The club work in each county is under the supervision 
of the County Advisory Committee, consisting of the County Super- 
intendent of Schools, the secretary of the Farmers' Institute, and the 
secretary of the Woman's Auxiliary to the Farmers' Institute. The 
County Superintendent in each county is expected to act as the County 
Manager under the direction of the Advisory Committee. If for any rea- 
son he is unable to act in this capacity, the Advisory Committee should 
select some other person for this work at the earliest possible date. 




SECRETARY WILSON ADDRESSING CORN-CLUB CHAMPIONS, JANUARY, 
1913, ON UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE GROUNDS 



The County Superintendent or County Manager should issue a call 
for the organization of a County Agricultural Club and the election of 
temporary officers as early as possible during the summer. The perma- 
nent organization and the annual election of officers should take place 
at the county seat on the last Saturday in September. In order to secure 
a large attendance at each of these meetings, there should be an inter- 
esting program or a contest provided in which many of the boys and 
girls would be interested. This may be held in connection with the 
county graduating exercises of the eighth grade, the Farmers' Institute, 
county fair, county teachers' meeting, school fair, farmers' short course, 
or any other public meeting where a good attendance of the boys and 
girls of the county could be secured. In every case the officers of the 



82 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



Farmers' Institute, Woman's Auxiliary, the county fair, commercial 
clubs, Y.M.C.A., or other similar organizations, Boy Scouts, teachers 
and all leading citizens of the county should be invited to cooperate 
with the County Superintendent in securing a meeting of the boys and 
girls for organizing a County Agricultural Club. At the first meeting 
the County Club constitution furnished by the A. and M. College should 
be adopted, ofHcers elected, the organization perfected, and plans for the 




A STOCK-JUDGIXG CONTEST AT THE A. AND M. COLLEGE 
OF OKLAHOMA 



coming year arranged as far as possible. Upon the proper application 
of five or more local clubs through the temporary president and secre- 
tary of the County Club, approved by the County Superintendent as 
County Manager, a special County Charter will be issued by the A. and 
M. College, which will insure the cooperation and support of the club 
work by the A. and M. College and the State Board of Agriculture. 

State ill/ Ik All boys and girls of white parentage who are not under 
nine nor over eighteen years of age, living in counties where no County 
or Local Club can be organized, may apply to the A. and M. College at 



SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS AND CORN CLUBS 83 

Stillwater, Oklahoma, and have themselves enrolled as members of the 
State Club. All members of Local or County Clubs are accounted 
members of the State Club without further enrollment. 

There are four types of contests open to these clubs, but the state 
and county contests seem to be most important. The county contests 
are of eight kinds, as follows : First, grain contest for boys fourteen to 
eighteen years of age, for the greatest profit from one acre of kafir, 
milo, or corn, produced by the contestant. Prize, a free trip to the 
State Fair school, short course, at Oklahoma City, all expenses paid. 

Second, crop contest for boys fourteen to eighteen. For the greatest 
profit from an acre of cotton, broomcorn, or peanuts produced by the 
contestant. Free trip to the District Agricultural School, short course, 
all expenses paid. 

Third, sewing contest for girls. Prize same as i. 

Fourth, canning contest for girls from fourteen to eighteen. For best 
display, consisting of twelve or more quart cans, of canned fruit and 
vegetables, including at least four varieties of fruit and at least four varie- 
ties of vegetables prepared by the contestant. Prize, same as 2. 

Fifth, hog contest for boys. '■- ? 

Sixth, cooking contest for girls. 

Seventh, poultry contest for boys and girls from nine to thirteen 
years of age. 

Eighth, butter-making contest for boys from nine to thirteen years 
of age. 

With such contests as these there will be something going 
on in the country community to think about and talk about. 
Many of the tasks of the farm and the farm home do not 
require much thought or mental direction, and the mind 
needs fresh materials to be worked over at such times if it is 
to grow. If it can be arranged so that the boys' and girls' 
clubs can meet in the same building and they can have a 
social hour and games after their business session, this will 
be a worthy addition to country social life. This is a practical 
method of giving an agricultural education without introduc- 
ing agriculture into the rural schools. I believe there are 
sections in which these boys' and girls' clubs are doing quite 



84 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



as much for the children as the rural schools themselves. 
They will also be one of the most successful means of mak- 
ing country life interesting and staying the migration to 
the cities. 

These clubs are now organized in nearly every state of the 
union. It is estimated that there are now about three hundred 
thousand members in the country, and that there will probably 




A LESSON IN DOMESTIC SCIENCE FOR THE PRIZE WINNERS AT THE 
STATE FAIR SCHOOL, OKLAHOMA 

be four or five hundred thousand next year. The suggestion 
of the corn club is equally as applicable to adults as to chil- 
dren, if the farmers themselves could only be persuaded that 
it is not beneath their dignity to enter into a contest of this 
kind. Perhaps the corn or other agricultural club might prove 
quite as effective as the demonstration farm or the farmers' in- 
stitute as a method of teaching agriculture, and it would have 
the added advantage of its social opportunity. 



PART THREE 
RECREATION IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY 



RECREATION IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY 

The two previous sections have dealt with play in the 
home and the school, and have had primarily to do with 
young children. This section is concerned with the recreation 
of adolescents and adults. It aims to show what kinds of 
recreation are being organized in the open country and are 
suited to the open country, what the essential problems of 
rural recreation are and how these are bound up with various 
industrial conditions and methods. 

It seems to the writer that the following problems lie at 
the foundation of the whole matter, and that no satisfactory 
solution of the country's need can be had without disposing 
of them. Country people are working much too long hours 
during a part of the year at least ; they cannot play unless 
there is some time to play. Long hours and lack of scientific 
training is making drudgery of activities that might be done 
in a play spirit if the hours were shorter and a deeper interest 
in the processes concerned had been created. Life is over- 
serious and materialistic in the country ; it must come to ap- 
preciate spiritual ideals and the value of play. Life is dull 
and unattractive to the boys and girls ; there must be infused 
into it the spirit of adventure and romance. As the farm 
people cannot be sociable in their daily lives, there must be 
some center where they can get together, both in summer 
and in winter, but especially in winter, as that is the time 
when the farmer has most leisure. The great weakness in 
the whole situation is lack of leadership, and this the country 
must provide at public expense. 

87 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PLAY- FESTIVAL AND PAGEANT IN THE 
OPEN COUNTRY 

All down the ages echoes the footfall of the pursuer, and 
man has been fleeing for his life, from the dinosaurs and 
monsters of the primeval world, from savage beasts and still 
more savage man w'ith club and stone and arrow, and always 
from cold and pestilence and famine. These have made man 
their prey. He has not dared to pause in his flight to look 
about him ; his course in life has been determined by the 
bitterest necessity. Even to-day there is little freedom of 
choice for the peasant peoples of Europe. For the first time 
in the history of the world, there has been given to a great 
people here in America the possibility of living a satisfying 
life. But we are trading the gold for the tinsel, we are throw- 
ing away the pearl for the shell in which it was imbedded, 
"' For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole 
world and shall forfeit his life ? " This is the question that 
should be written on the plow handles and carved on the 
doorposts of the American farm. What is the advantage of 
increasing prosperity if more acres are to mean longer hours 
and less time for the family and enjoyment ? The farm is 
constantly losing its most capable young people, because the 
conception of life that lies behind it is forever opposed and 
uncongenial to the spirit of youth ; for to that spirit, life is 
ever the paramount thing. But the farmer has put prosperity 
above living, and to this ambition, as to Moloch, he is sacrific- 
ing not his own life alone but the lives of the entire family. 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY 



89 



Growing out of the Rural Life Commission appointed by 
President Roosevelt has come the " Country Life Movement," 
and this movement has seen its vision. The question of the 
open country is not one of better agriculture alone, but of 
better living quite as much. The farmer must be made to 
realize that there are other things of value than land and 
hogs. He must aspire as well to social and political position 
and influence, to founding a family and a life that is satisfy- 
ing to all its members. He must enjoy the beauty and feel 




A RURAL PLAY FESTIVAL 



that he is a co-worker with God in the wonderful processes 
of growth and development. Life in the country has been 
too dull and hard and sordid. In some way there must be 
infused into it variety, sociability, and an appreciation of 
spiritual values. 

One of the most effective means of injecting this new life 
into the country is the play festival. The play festival is not 
a new thing historically, as the Roman Church has had its 
pageants and fiestas for centuries. The peasant peoples of 
Europe have had their harvest and other festivals, coming 
several times a year, when nearly the whole community 



go 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



assembled on the village green for a general merrymaking ; 
but there has been a headlong haste to get somewhere in 
America that has not left us time to consider where we Vv^ere 
going, much less to admire the flowers that grew by the road- 
side. We have so mixed the peasant peoples of Europe that 
they have not bee-n able to transplant their customs and festi- 
vals. We have denationalized religion and subordinated the 
church, so that it could not organize the social and recreational 




POTATO RACE AT A RURAL PLAY FESTIVAL 

life, and we have produced from these conditions a life on 
the whole overserious and rather sordid, which has relegated 
to a very subordinate place the natural pursuit of human and 
spiritual ends. 

It can almost be taken for granted of any new educational 
or social movement that it was " made in Germany," and the 
play festival is no exception. It is encouraging to note that it 
has not been a spontaneous expression of the spirit of the peo- 
ple, but a matter of promotion. They sought to get their people 
out of the beer gardens to take part in various health-giving 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY 9 1 

exercises and to enjoy life in the open. The beginnings 
were more than twenty years ago, and these festivals have 
now become common throughout the empire. Some of them, 
as the one of the Rhine Lands and Westphalia, include 
a whole province or more, and many thousands of people 
come by train to see and take part. The festival lasts for 
an afternoon and an evening, with games, gymnastic drills, 




AN EXCITING MOMENT 
Field day at New Platz, New York 

athletic contests, music, and dancing ; but its influence lasts 
for the entire year, for it tends to introduce these events into 
the schools and into the homes, and its spirit into the life of 
the people. 

The first rural play festival in this country was organized 
by Principal Scudder of the New Paltz Normal School in 1905. 
The students went out from the normal school and taught 
the children at the country schools to play the games and to 



92 PLAY AND RECREATION 

take part in the contests. They found that the children did 
not have basket balls and could not purchase them, so they 
made basket balls by wrapping pumpkins in hay and sewing 
them up in a canvas cover. There were no baskets, so they 
used barrel hoops instead. They started volley ball and tether 
ball. They had match contests in prisoner's base and pullaway, 
and there were potato races, relay races, dashes, and jumps. 
It was decided to start the test of the Public School Athletic 
League, which says that " boys under thirteen shall be able 
to run sixty yards in eight and three-fifths seconds, to chin a 
bar four times, and jump five feet nine inches standing." 
The country people said that may be all right for city boys, 
who do not have anything to do ; but country boys are strong 
from farm work and they can do these things easily. Much 
to their surprise, scarcely one was successful, and the boys 
began to train all over the county. About the middle of 
June a great play festival was held at New Paltz which was 
attended by more than four thousand people. It has been 
one of the annual events in this county ever since. 

The Work of the County Y.M.C.A. 

Within the last decade has come the development of the 
county work of the Y.M.C.A. This work is without equip- 
ment and with only one paid worker, who is both physical 
director and general secretary. He organizes groups of young 
fellows, usually under eighteen years of age, at various cen- 
ters about the county. They have Bible study, corn clubs, ath- 
letics, a summer camp, and an annual conference. There are 
now sixty of these rural secretaries. In every case they are 
organizing athletics over some part of the county of which 
they have charge, often at the district schools. They gener- 
ally hold a play festival, in connection with the county fair, 
where it is usually one of the most attractive features. The 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY 93 

Secretaiy of Windsor County, Vermont, has attracted much 
attention in the country at large by the organization of this 
work in his county. 

The County Superintendent of Schools 

It is impossible to say at present how many counties are 
already conducting organized athletics, with a play festival at 
or about the close of the school year. It is certainly a far 
larger number than any layman in the field of recreation 
would be likely to suspect. In lecturing to teachers in differ- 
ent parts of the country, I often have superintendents come 
to me and say that they are organizing the recreation in their 
county or that they are planning to for the coming year. Usu- 
ally they have had very inadequate preparation themselves, but 
some of them are making a good showing on paper at least. 
A set of instructions is generally sent out from the superin- 
tendent's office, showing the games and events to be partici- 
pated in, and giving some brief instructions for training. 

Hamilton County, Tennessee 

Hamilton County, Tennessee, has employed a man during 
the past year to organize the play of the children at the differ- 
ent schoolhouses about the county. He teaches the games, 
organizes teams, and arranges for contests and tournaments. 
A certain amount of time is taken from the school day for 
this purpose. It has been found that this organizing of the 
play has increased the attendance nearly twenty per cent. 

Proposed Bill for Illinois 

Dr. Earle of Des Plaines, Illinois, introduced a bill into the 
last legislature of the state of Illinois, calling for the establish- 
ment of recreation districts about the state at any time that 
the taxpayers might desire to do so. Any one hundred voters 



94 PLAY AND RECREATION 

could bring this up to a vote at any time, under the condi- 
tions of the bill. This bill failed to pass the last legislature, 
but it will be reintroduced this year. This is interesting, as 
it is similar to the arrangement that already prevails in the 
country sections of Germany. 

ORGANIziiD AT CoUNTY TeACHERS' INSTITUTES 

Perhaps the most feasible way to organize a play festival 
at present is at a county teachers' institute. At the institute 
the whole matter can be brought before the teachers. Its 
purpose may be explained, and the teachers may be taught 
the games and their cooperation enlisted in making the fes- 
tival a success. Definite events should be set for the contests 
at least three months before the festival is to take place, and, 
if possible, one or two preliminary contests with other schools 
should be arranged in order to stimulate the interest. The 
play festival should be a big event for the town where it is 
held. The merchants will readily contribute the prizes, which 
should be inexpensive but real souvenirs of the event. 

Should reach the Entire Community 

The most serious criticism of the play festivals that iiave 
thus far been held in this country is that there has been too 
little in them for the adults. They have been too largely 
devoted to the children. The play festival should be a holi- 
day for the whole countryside and should bring out every 
one. It should be a play exposition or fair where all sorts of 
recreation are exhibited, especially the particular sorts which 
are fitted to the needs of the country community. There should 
be events for the adults, and for the adults of the particular 
locality, such as fly-casting contests, clay-pigeon shooting, or 
target practice. In the future there may well be volley ball 
and indoor baseball. 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL LN THE COUNTRY 95 

Athletic Events 

In selecting the events the effort should be made to have 
such a series of games that every child can take part in some- 
thing. It would be well if a printed list of these events could 
be sent around by the County Superintendent, so that it could 
be posted in every schoolroom. This announcement should 
state also what prizes, if any, are to be awarded to contestants, 





THE OXE-HUNDRED-YARD DASH 
Play festival in Winnebago County, Illinois 

and the teachers should be requested to explain the coming 
festival to the children and to interest as many as possible 
to take part. Some of the events that should be scheduled 
are the following : 

Games of the little children, circle games, etc. 

Pullaway and Prisoner's Base and other games of low organization. 

Playground baseball for boys. 

Playground baseball for girls. 



96 PLAY AND RECRP:ATI0N 

Long ball for boys. 

Volley ball for boys. 

Volley ball for girls. 

Tether ball in teams of three. 

Tennis, singles and doubles for boys. 

Tennis, singles and doubles for girls. 

Basket ball for the girls. 

Basket ball for the boys. 

One-hundred-yard dash for boys under sixteen. 

Sixty-yard dash for boys under thirteen. 

Sixty-yard dash for boys under sixteen. 

Sixty-yard dash for girls under thirteen. 

Twenty-five-yard dash for boys under eleven. 

Twenty-five-yard dash for girls under eleven. 

Running broad jump for boys under sixteen. 

Running broad jump for boys under thirteen. 

Running high jump for boys under thirteen. 

Running high jump for boys under sixteen. 

Folk dancing by the older girls, in costume, if possible. 

Exhibition drill of the Boy Scouts. 

Exhibition of the Camp Fire Girls. 

For adults : baseball, quoits, tennis, volley ball, indoor baseball, 
dancing. In some places horsemanship and lassoing, marksmanship, 
bait-casting, plowing, etc. 

Games 

A play festival of this kind will require much preliminary 
work. It should be fully announced in the papers, and some- 
thing should be kept running for some time beforehand in 
order to maintain the interest. It will take a large-sized piece 
of level ground, because many of these events will have to 
be run simultaneously in order to get through in an after- 
noon. The athletic field of a college, normal school, or high 
school would be the best place to hold the festival if there is 
any such ground centrally located, or the county fair ground. 
Everything must be in readiness at the appointed time. A 
large number of officials, twenty or thirty at least, will be 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY 97 

needed to umpire and referee the different games, and there 
must be many others to help as guides and to assist in keep- 
ing" order. It will help if each school will carry a banner and 
have some insignia on the sleeve which will facilitate recog- 
nition. The preliminaries should be tried out beforehand or 
in the morning, so that only the final and more interesting 
events may be left for the afternoon. A number of these may 
go on simultaneously, but so far as possible each of the 
more important games should be given a clear stage for a 
few minutes, in order to impress the game on the community. 
These games might be much shortened, but there ought at 
least to be three games of tennis played with every one look- 
ing on, croquet to the first stake, eleven points in volley 
ball, and three innings in indoor baseball. 

Such a play festival as this will set the children to playing 
with a purpose in the school yards all over the county. It 
will lead to the introduction of many of these games into the 
yards of the farm homes, and sooner or later it should create 
in the community a spirit of play which the country has sadly 
lacked. Where there is a county school fair this play festival 
might well be one of the events at this fair, if this fair can 
be held in the spring. But if the fair is held in the fall, it 
will probably be better to have them separate, as the chil- 
dren will have to get most of their training while school is in 
session, and the whole organization would be apt to dissolve 
during the long summer vacation. Rural schools are very 
apt to change teachers in the fall, and many of the chil- 
dren drop out, so it will be almost necessary to have the 
festival either in the spring or, in the South and West, in 
the winter. 

There are a number of normal schools that are now giving 
a play festival each spring, largely in order to train their 
students in organizing this work in their own schools later. 



;S 




9S 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY 99 

It is no light task to change the spirit of a people, to intro- 
duce idealism and romance and adventure into a life that 
has become overserious and overdull, to check the headlong 
haste that is going nowhere, and promote the earnest pursuit 
of well-selected aims. This is a problem that applies largely to 
all, but especially to the half of our people who are living in 
rural communities. It is one of the largest problems of con- 
structive statesmanship that our educators and legislators have 
to solve, for the welfare of the country is dependent on the 
stability and dignity of our farming population, and the capa- 
ble people will not stay in the country unless rural life is 

worth while. 

The Rural Pageant 

The pageant is in general a condensation of history or liter- 
ature, most often a representation by the people of a locality 
of the significant events that took place there. These pageants 
grew up naturally in the cities of the Old World, where a 
thousand years of history offered a succession of kings and 
queens, knights and ladies, of plots and romances and trage- 
dies, that might appear upon the stage in the trappings and 
equipment and dress of successive ages. To represent thus 
the local heroes, around whom legend and childhood's fancies 
had cast the glamour of romance, in the presence often of the 
king and queen or some foreign potentate, seemed to the 
peoples of the Middle Ages alike the highest expression of 
patriotism and of themselves. 

The pageants that have been given in Europe have had 
many centuries of history to draw upon for their characters 
and events. The people have a reverence for locality and its 
traditions, arising from the fact that most of the families are 
the descendants of others that have lived in the city for gener- 
ations. None of these conditions prevail in this country, and 
historical pageants can never be as attractive here. Still nearly 



lOO ■ PLAY AND RECREATION 

all the pageants that have thus far been given have been 
historical pageants, and most of them have been successful 
if the weather has been propitious. This serves to show how 
deep is the appeal which the pageant makes. Most of these 
have been a mere cross section of American history, repre- 
senting primarily national events rather than local events or 
characters. The pageant usually begins with the Indians, to 
be followed by the pioneers, the French and Indian War, 
the Revolution, and the Civil War, with some local characters 
who figured conspicuously in these events. A few symbolic 
figures are usually seen, and there is often a prophecy of the 
future. It would seem as though most of the pageants that 
have been given have followed practically the same outline. 
These pageants have been held in a considerable number of 
cities in New England, where there is the most history to 
represent. They have called out enormous crowds, have some- 
times at least been self-supporting, and have awakened a great 
deal of civic pride and patriotism. Courses in pageantry are 
now being given in Columbia and, I believe, in a number of 
other universities. The position of Director of the Pageant 
has become a profession, and its future seems to be bright. 

There are some who think that the pageant is to be one 
of the largest factors in the rural recreation of the future, and 
this may well be so, but it must be a pageant of somewhat 
different sort from the ones that have thus far prevailed with 
us. There is no local history or historic characters of impor- 
tance in most country communities. History itself often goes 
back only a generation, so that the pageant would reveal little 
that was not already familiar to the oldest inhabitants. The 
attractiveness of the pageant depends largely on the costumes, 
and there are no costumers in the country, and there are no 
fancy or antique garments for hire. The pageant is an out- 
of-door show and requires the time of many people. In most 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY loi 

sections of the country it must be given in the summer or 
the late spring or early fall. These are the busy times of the 
year on the farm, which fact practically excludes farmers from 
participation in it, though it might be organized from the 
village people if there were significant events to depict. The 
pageant at Thetford, Vermont, was a success, and has done 
much to create a new civic pride and reanimate these dying 
communities ; but it is doubtful if such pageants could be 
largely duplicated in other rural communities. 




PLAY FESTIVAL AT NORMAL SCHOOL IN MACOMB, ILLINOIS 



It would be very difficult if not impossible to give a pageant 
entirely with adults in most rural communities, but I see no 
reason why this could not be done with comparative ease 
through the schools. I believe too that the pageant would be 
likely to prove one of the most educative things in the whole 
school year. The first pageants that were given in this coun- 
try, so far as I know, were given by the Ethical Culture School 
of New York, where they were introduced purely for social 
and educational reasons. It would not be difficult to hold such 
a pageant anywhere, if there is a County Superintendent who 
can form a plan of what is to be represented and assign the 



102 • PLAY AND RECREATION 

parts to the different schools, so that the whole will fit together 
like the scenes of a play when it is finished. Each school 
might be responsible for the representation of some historic 
or literary event; as, for instance, School No. i, the lives 
of the Indians ; School No. 2, the trappers and pioneers ; 
School No. 3, an Indian raid, the Stamp Act, or the Boston 
Tea Party, etc. ; or, if conditions were favorable, the schools 
might represent the industries of the county. Such a pageant 
would inevitably call out large numbers on account of the 
number of participants, and the merchants of the county seat 
could well afford to put up the necessary expense in order to 
bring the pageant there. 

The pageant can be yet more easily organized through a 
high school, normal school, or college, and it will there have 
a much wider range of possibilities, as it can represent the 
history of other countries as well as this, and literature as 
well as history. Mount Holyoke has shown how interesting 
a mere dramatic and symbolic representation of the differ- 
ent subjects in the curriculum can be made. This is a form 
of pageant that could be organized by a high school quite as 
easily if not more easily than by a college, for the high school 
has practically the same subjects. It has boys as well as girls, 
and the girls can make most of the costumes as a part of their 
regular work in domestic economy. It might take much time to 
produce a pageant based on "' Ivanhoe," but the pageant would 
surely interest the young people and the community in the story 
and make it real, as mere reading will never do. Such events 
will make school more interesting to the young people and 
will increase the attendance, will bring the school and the 
community together, and will add a bright thread to country 
life. If the pageant is given in place of or as a part of the 
graduation exercises of the school, it will not take much of 
any one's time, and it will make commencement much more 



THE PLAY FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY 103 

interesting. The preparation of such a pageant will make 
history and literature live for the participants, and will be just 
as educative in a large way as any of the studies of the curricu- 
lum. The pageant may be rendered as a service to the com- 
munity, and as such it may be a training in social service. 
American communities just now need to learn to play more 
than they need to learn to work, and the pageant will be a 
direct preparation for the students in a rightly proportioned 
life ; for to the actor and the beholder the pageant proclaims 
" Life does not consist in wealth or wisdom ; it must be lived 
and enjoyed to be worth while. Realize the past and the 
present, and feel the joy and the significance of living." 



CHAPTER IX 

RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 

If the country is to be made attractive enough so that the 
country people will care to live there, this must come through 
a new emphasis on the home and social life, in less thought of 
pigs and corn, and more thought of children and living. The 
country has suffered because it has been dominated by the 
materialistic point of view of the farmer, who has estimated 
success too largely in terms of acres, rather than in joy and 
love and worthy thoughts and purposes, which alone can 
make life worth living. If this change is to come, it must 
come mainly through the education of the farm girls to lead in 
strengthening the home and the social life of the community. 

Neither the Work nor the Play of Girls as Educational 
AS that of Boys 

The farm girl has thus far been very much neglected. It 
is to be feared that the country has not been as good a place 
for her as it has been for the boy. I can scarcely imagine a 
boyhood potentially more educative than that of my brothers 
and myself on a Michigan farm. During the spring we 
speared suckers by daylight and torchlight in the creek ; in 
the summer we went swimming from one to three times a 
day ; in the fall we pursued the fleeing pickerel along the 
banks of the same stream and often came home with a goodly 
string. We trapped for mink and muskrat and coon, and we 
hunted rabbits with dog and gun and ferret. From the time 
we were small children we had our own log houses in the 

104 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 105 

woods, where we lived much of our leisure time. We had 
our own little farms, which we fenced with fallen limbs and 
plowed with a crooked stick in true primitive fashion. We 
robbed the nests of the bumblebees and became familiar with 
the habits of all the local birds. There was scarcely a woods 
or a swamp within a range of three or four miles that we did 
not know more or less well by the time we were twelve years 
old. In this life we were almost exactly repeating racial his- 
tory and following the most fundamental interests of the 
barbaric age to which we belonged. We passed through this 
into the age of the nomad caring for the cattle and the pigs 
and the chickens. We drove the horses and tilled the crops. 
We were savages, nomads, agriculturists, as the race has been. 
All of these processes were educative in my case because none 
of them was carried on to the exclusion of the others, but each 
in a well-balanced ration entered into the week and the 
month. As these experiences stand out in memory as no 
later experiences do, I judge that they made a deeper impres- 
sion, that they were more effective in developing the imagi- 
nation, the sympathy, the judgment than any later experiences. 
They furnished the rugged strength and insight of the Goth 
on which to build the civilization of the Anglo-Saxon. 

As I have observed country girls, it has not seemed to me 
that their play was similarly educative. It is all right to play 
at keeping house, but it is not as exciting or stimulating to 
the imagination as hunting and fishing. To dress dolls is 
admirable, but the doll is not very energetic in the matter, 
and as sport it seems a trifle tame. The girl as a rule cannot 
go swimming or roam the woods with that freedom that her 
brother exercises. Her work is mostly in the house, away 
from the nature world which is naturally so wonderful to chil- 
dren. Her duties are monotonous and uninteresting. There 
is not much adventure in washing the dishes or sweeping the 



lo6 PLAY AND RECREATION 

floor to-day, and the consciousness that it will have to be 
done over again for some three hundred and sixty-four other 
days during the year does not add to the zest. 

Girls' Play not encouraged 

The boy is constantly encouraged to vigorous play, which 
is probably the iTiost educative thing in the life of chil- 
dren, but the girl receives no such encouragement. Most 
children's games are derived from the occupations of our 
savage fathers, coming largely from the chase and war. The 
boy inherits an interest in these activities that is less fully 
felt by the girl. Boys are more interested in running, jump- 
ing, and all forms of competition. Throwing and striking 
are elements in many games, and girls find these coordi- 
nations more difficult to acquire. The community encourages 
the boy to excel, but it calls the girl a tomboy if she runs 
and jumps and climbs trees and does the other things 
that she ought to do for her own development. The girl's 
dress is always unsuitable. When she is small and wears 
a short dress she cannot climb on a fence or into a tree, 
run where she is likely to fall down, or even sit on a door- 
step and seem modest. She is usually dressed better than 
her brother and required to keep her clothes cleaner. The 
girl who is clad in a white dress and told to keep it clean is 
practically forbidden to play. When puberty comes, and the 
girl puts on her long dress, she is still more hampered by her 
clothing. The results of these conditions are easily discov- 
ered. The girl at puberty has only three quarters of the lung 
capacity of the boy of the same age. Her blood is almost 
never in as good a condition. Her activity is going to be re- 
stricted by her long dress and custom in the years that fol- 
low, and these conditions ought to be reversed. I have given 
courses in twenty-two different normal schools, where many 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 107 

of the young women were country girls, and I always find 
that there are many of them who cannot run without wad- 
dling ; that they have little play spirit ; that they will seldom 
keep track of the score in a game of volley ball or indoor 
baseball, and will often be hit by the ball before they realize 
where it is. This can only mean that through the years that 
have gone before most of these young women have not 
played as much as they should. 

The Adolescent Girl requires some Romance and 
Adventure 

I do not plan to write at this time of recreation for the 
little girls, but rather of recreation for that most critical time 
that lies between the dawn of puberty and marriage, the 
period in the country that as a rule lies between fourteen and 
about twenty. This is the age of romance, of beauty and 
dreams. It is a period of hope, when all things seem pos- 
sible, a time of religious fervor, of the love of music and art 
and poetry, when all the more delicate charms of women 
make their appearance and when each demands time for its 
development. The natural idealism and romance of the period 
is one of the most delicate and beautiful things in life. It is 
a time when life should have its duties, its sense of service 
to others, for this is the inner meaning of the ripening func- 
tions of sex which are fitting the girl to become a mother. 
It should not be a time of idleness, but there must be some 
leisure for dreams and pleasure and idealism. The natural 
altruism of the period often leads the girl to immolate herself 
on the altar of home drudgery ; but to do this is to sacrifice 
the charm of later years. It is from living in the castles of 
Spain that we are often fitted to live in the real palaces of 
life. Drudgery that is borne to save the overworked mother 
at home may be ennobling to the spirit, but it is a March 



Io8 PLAY AND RECREATION 

wind upon the bloom of youth. It is the lack of adventure 
and romance that leads many of the young people to leave 
the farm. The " country life problem " cannot be solved 
without restoring to the country some of the adventure and 
romance that it had in pioneer days. " Man shall not live by 
bread alone." Life demands its thrills and inspirations to be 
worth living. It is these that must furnish the purpose, the 
insight, and the motive for what the long hours of work 
must accomplish ; and work without a purpose is generally 
drudgery, as a life without a purpose is the flotsam and jet- 
sam of the sea of humanity. 

This is also the most dangerous period of life morally. 
The beginning of puberty is a period of storm and stress, a 
period of curiosity, of temptation, of a new sense of independ- 
ence. The girl feels that she has become a woman and 
that she should no longer be kept in leading strings. Free- 
dom is apt to mean license in the beginning, whether the 
freedom be of peoples or individuals. About the beginning 
of this period the girl finishes her course in the district 
school. So far as she herself is concerned she probably has 
no purpose for the years that lie between her graduation and 
her marriage. Of course a few country girls go on to high 
school and college, but the vast majority do not. If she 
comes from a well-to-do home she scorns to work out. She 
probably expects to have the time of her life during the next 
few years, to make conquests of all the young men of the 
neighborhood and finally marry some billionaire from the city. 
It is the hopeful, joyous, romantic outlook on life that is the 
charm of these young girls. It is well for them to have these 
joys in anticipation if they cannot have them in fact, for they 
are thereby gaining experience vicariously and a sympathetic 
contact with a larger life than the neighborhood affords. 
There are too many country girls who have all of this 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 1 09 

romance, and hope, and sweet idealism crushed out of them 
within a year or two by a too materiahstic home, which looks 
upon all of these dreams as foolishness. The woman who 
loses the ideals and dreams of this period may be a good 
servant or housewife or even a good woman of business, but 
she can never have the delicate charm which is woman's 
right. Country life must not be too tame and common. To 
kill the romance of youth is to blight the future. This is one of 
the large problems for the Countiy Life Movement to solve. 

Girl's School Training Unsatisfactory 

The school from which the girl has graduated at the begin- 
ning of the period probably has given her almost no prepara- 
tion for the years that are coming on. The problems of the 
arithmetic, the grammar, the geography, and even the history 
have nothing of importance to offer toward the problems she 
has to solve. Her studies have left her ignorant of the things 
that are most vital to both her welfare and the welfare of the 
community. 

The one kind of knowledge that is of paramount impor- 
tance to a girl of fourteen is knowledge of herself, to know 
the laws of sex and its hygiene. Country girls are not igno- 
rant of sex functions, but of the saving knowledge of its laws 
and dangers they are almost entirely ignorant. This igno- 
rance leaves them a prey to many needless and morbid fears 
which repress without cause their natural joyousness. The 
next most important knowledge for a maturing young woman 
is the art and craft of the home maker, the ability to sew, 
cook, and make the house attractive. As a prospective mother 
she needs to know about the care of children, and the chief 
causes of infant mortality. She needs to know how to turn 
the house into a home by organizing its social life. For the 
charm and largeness of her daily life, she must have learned 



no PLAY AND RECREATION 

to know and love the nature world around her, and must have 
formed a taste for good reading. All of these things are 
essential to the welfare of the years to come, while cube root 
and European cities and the laws of syntax can never have 
more than a casual or accidental relation to this welfare. 

Need of Extension Schools 

Country girls very often used to attend the rural school in 
the wintertime until they were twenty years of age, whereas 
now they are usually ready to graduate by the time they are 
fourteen or fifteen. The very natural suggestion is, why not 
have them go on in the winter season as they once did, and 
in these years learn something that will be helpful to them in 
the life that they are called to lead ? The work is not usually 
very pressing in the country from the middle of October to the 
middle of April. This is a short high-school year, but if our 
schools had a five-year course, like those of Denmark, which 
also have a term of six months, it would be possible to give 
the farm boys and girls the definite knowledge which they 
need in their daily lives, and that sort of training which would 
help them to build up the community as well. These winter 
schools for the older boys and girls of the farm are already 
well under way for the state of Iowa. A series of extension 
schools has just been established by state law in Wisconsin, 
Illinois, and Indiana, and I know not what other states, and 
we may hope that the other states will soon see the light. 
There should be such a school in every township in the 
United States. 

Need of Play 

Country girls do not play games, as a rule, after they are 
thirteen or fourteen years old. This is the time that the boys 
drop the old individualistic and personally competitive games 
and take up the team games, such as baseball and basket ball. 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL in 

But the girls have never played team games until the last 
two or three decades, and even to-day there are comparatively 
few who are playing. The life of country girls is rather tame 
and prosaic at best ; the girl is always in danger of losing her 
play spirit, which is the charm of girlhood. The country girl, 
despite the fact that she is living in the country, often gets 
very little of the open air, or exercise of a vigorous sort. 
She is often stooped and round-shouldered from her work. 
She needs the exercise and the society that would come from 
belonging to an athletic club. There is land in plenty, there are 
girls enough, and if only some one can be found to take the 
initiative, it is possible, as a rule, to secure the equipment. 

Croouet 

Croquet hardly deserves to be ranked as athletics, but it is 
a game that should be played at every country home. The 
equipment costs little ; the ground is easily laid out. It is 
social, — nearly as good as a pipe or a cup of tea to get 
acquainted over, — and older people will play with pleasure as 
well as the younger ones. It does not take long, and serves 
well to fill in the chinks of time. It is the only outdoor game 
that is now being generally played at country homes. 

Tennis 

I do not know that I ever heard of a tennis tournament 
in the country. But why should not such tournaments be 
played ? The country is in every way adapted to tennis. It 
takes much room for the number of players, and the country 
has plenty of room. It needs only two players, and the coun- 
try lacks numbers. A game can be played on the lawn with 
no equipment except a couple of posts, a net, racket, and balls. 
If a dirt court is to be made, the farm has the scrapers and 
other implements needed, and it probably can be made in 



112 PLAY AND RECREATION 

the spare time, so that the cost will be very little. Country 
girls should play tennis in order to develop grace and activity, 
alertness of mind and the spirit of play. Tennis also has 
the great advantage of being a game in which girls and boys 
can play together. It is a good wholesome social occasion for 
the meeting of the sexes, such as the country badly needs. 
The rivalry of play is likely to turn the mind away from sen- 
timental thoughts of the wrong type and to breed, instead, a 
wholesome emulation and respect. The great trouble with 
this, as with all recreation in the country, is the lack of some 
one to get it started. If there is a leader, either from the 
Y.W.C.A., the Camp Fire Girls, or from the community, it 
should not be difficult. About once a month the girls might 
play doubles with young men partners. If there are grounds 
at a township school, the tournament games might well be 
played there on Saturday afternoons. 

Volley Ball 

Probably the best game for the country boys and girls alike 
is volley ball (for description of game see Part II, Chapter 
VI). Social morality is probably at quite as low an ebb in 
the country as it is in the city. The reason for it is largely 
the lack of wholesome social occasions. There are few social 
gatherings, and the young people meet for solitary rides and 
walks at a time when sex temptations are sure to be strong, 
and they have not much to talk about. Anything which will 
enable the young people to see each other in a more whole- 
some way will be good. If four or five couples would play 
volley ball together one afternoon a week, the wholesome 
rivalry and cooperation of play would do more to overcome 
the sentimental giggling relationship that is apt to exist than 
anything else I know. Here again the trouble is in getting 
started ; this serves to emphasize once more that the real 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 1 13 

weakness of the country is a lack of leadership. Volley ball 
is not much fun until you know the game and have acquired 
some skill. It is possible for an energetic girl to get it 
started herself from a mere book of rules, but she must be 
a real leader. 

Indoor Baseball 

Indoor baseball, which is played out of doors almost alto- 
gether at present, is an excellent game for girls ; but it re- 
quires eighteen players, which is too large a number for most 
country communities to furnish easily. It is an excellent 
game for both young men and women, and it has the advan- 
tage that the young men at least will know the game. It is 
also a good game for the young men and women to play 
together. 

Girls' Canning and Cooking Clubs 

In some sections the girls' canning and cooking contests 
are adding a great deal to the interest in country life, and 
in not a few localities the goods that are put up become the 
source of a considerable income. The training is a part of 
the regular trade of the housewife, and the social opportuni- 
ties are wholesome and valuable. If it is possible for the corn 
clubs and the canning clubs to meet together at times, this 
will add to the interest. The canning club may also meet at 
certain times as an athletic club and have games and folk 
dances or a Camp Fire meeting. Undoubtedly the play move- 
ment in the country would receive a more hearty support 
from the farmers if it were in some way connected with the 
general industrial movement that is bringing in the new agri- 
culture and the new home. This also puts the movement 
where it belongs as a part of country life. I do not know that 
any canning clubs have thus far done this ; but, again, why 
not .'' No club can be successful as a club and devote all its 



114 PLAY AND RECREATION 

energies to business. The grange has its literaiy and social 
occasions. A large part of all the boys' and girls' clubs in 
the city, for whatever purpose organized, have athletics and 
games as one of their regular activities. 

The Love of Nature 

Farm people have not learned to appreciate nature. Chil- 
dren are interested in all natural objects ; but this usually 




SEWING CONTEST, IJASED ON SEWING A BUTTON ANIJ PATCH ON CLOTH 
AND MAKING A BUTTONHOLE 

receives little encouragement, as it is apt not to occur to the 
parents that to know and love the flowers that grow in the 
meadow and the birds that sing by the roadside may be 
the source of as much pleasure and profit as to locate the 
cities of Asia or to conjugate the verb anio. 

The education that country children require cannot be 
given largely indoors. It must be given in part, at least, in 
the playground, the garden, the fields, and by the roadside. 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 115 

If the farmer loves nature, he finds himself constantly sur- 
rounded by a hundred things that speak to his spirit. If he 
gets no pleasure from the song of the robin or the bluebird, 
from the rustle of the leaves, the waving of the grain, the 
thousand blended colors of a distant landscape, or the glories 
of the autumn foliage, he is missing most of those peculiar 
joys that the country can offer. 

Walking 

There is no better way to cultivate a love for nature than 
through walking. The man who drives, or rides, or autos 
has his attention too much distracted. He usually goes too 
fast. He cannot notice the song of the bird, the color of 
the flower, the gentle gurgle of the brook. He does not 
attend to the thousand delicate tones of color and feeling in 
the air and the face of nature. Walking is peculiarly appli- 
cable for people living in small villages, because as a rule 
they do not own horses, and a short trip takes them off the 
pavement. The farmer usually has plenty of exercise and 
fresh air also, while the villager often does not. 

We have imported most of our education from Germany, but 
thus far we have not imported walking. There is a national 
walkers' association in Germany, and a local walkers' club in 
nearly every town and city ; but walking is not regarded as 
either recreation or exercise in America. Walking is the 
only way that one can ever come really to know a country, its 
products, and its people. The best books of travel that have 
ever been written have been views afoot. It is almost the 
only way to cultivate a love for nature in her varied moods. 
In Germany they are getting up a series of guides for walk- 
ing parties that cover every section of the country. There are 
few, if any, parts of this country that do not have many points 
of interest within a radius of ten miles, yet few of them are 



Ii6 PLAY AND RECREATION 

known by the dwellers of the countryside. Country people 
are apt to regard travel as the one great opportunity of life, 
but they do not realize that the best preparation and equiva- 
lent for travel is the intensive study of the locality. If one 
has not learned to know that and has not acquired the power 
of obsei'vation, a trip through Europe will not teach him 
much, for, as Emerson says, that person who has learned to 
observe the significant things will see more that is worth see- 
ing in a trip to the country town than another would in a trip 
through Europe, 

Walking is the most fundamental means of overcoming 
country isolation. It requires no expensive equipment or 
preparation. It is within the possibilities of all who are not 
crippled. It is healthful and productive of intimate knowl- 
edge and inspiration. The ability to walk gives a great sense 
of independence, because with it one can go and come as one 
pleases. It is not really much of a task for one who is leading 
a vigorous life to walk twenty miles a day. The farmer fol- 
lows the plow and the drag at least as far during a consider- 
able part of the year. The well-developed country girl would 
not mind the walk if she once had the idea of taking it. 

In most sections of the country there will be within five 
miles an interesting lake and grove, a stone quarry, a mine, 
a stock farm, a cave, or other object of interest. W^hat could 
be more interesting or appropriate than to get up a small 
party of girls and boys, young men and women, walk over to 
the place of interest, have a camp fire, a picnic dinner, play 
games, or go swimming, and come home .'' I should like to 
see, for the future of the race, some requirement that no 
young woman would be granted a marriage license unless 
she could walk fifteen miles straight off' without undue weari- 
ness. I should not put this into the statutes to prevent people 
from getting married, but because, if such a thing were even 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL I17 

suggested as desirable and girls understood that this was a 
standard that they were supposed to come up to, they would 
soon surpass the standard of their own accord. 

Riding Horseback 

Horseback riding is an accomplishment of unequal value 
in different parts of the country. It is almost necessary in 
the South and parts of the West. It can be pursued to a 
considerable extent in most country villages and more or less 
in every section of the open country. Horseback riding is 
excellent exercise for women. It is generally regarded as a 
real accomplishment. It is good sport, and it is one of the 
most wholesome ways for the boys and girls to have their 
social times together. It makes possible the visit to picnic 
groves and the neighboring towns. It extends the possible 
range of acquaintance and experience. It brings in a new 
form of recreation and makes possible a wider choice of 
friends. It overcomes to no small degree the isolation of 
the country home. It is one of the most popular and expen- 
sive forms of recreation in the city, which only the rich can 
afford. It is never as attractive in the city, as there is not 
much pleasure in riding over the hard pavements and dodg- 
ing the automobiles and carriages that throng the city streets. 
Horseback riding enables one to visit a distant picnic grove, 
to bathe in the lake, or to go fishing. One of the greatest 
lacks of the countryside is that every one know^s every one 
else so well that all the romance is gone. It is around the 
strange and the unfamiliar that all the legends and wonderful 
tales and imaginations grow up. The country girl is apt to 
fall in love with the city youth, because she can weave all 
sorts of imaginations about his life, which she cannot well 
spin about the neighbor's son whom she has known from 
childhood. He may be a good fellow and a good friend, but 



Ii8 PLAY AND RECREATION 

he is commonplace because an everyday acquaintance. It is 
difficult to make him the subject of a romance. It is an ad- 
vantage to have acquaintances in this outer circle whom daily 
contact has not made commonplace. There are also doubtless 
dangers in such relationships, but they are almost necessary 
to the idealism of love. 

Driving 

Driving is the principal form of recreation in the country 
at present. Nearly every young man who aspires to go with 
a young lady feels that a carriage is a necessary prerequisite. 
The family carriage seems to be disappearing, and the almost 
universal conveyance is what is known as the covered buggy. 
It is a vehicle built for two, and it is evidently intended for 
the two to sit close together, for it has a very narrow seat. 
The buggy, after the shades begin to fall, admits of as much 
privacy as may be desired. Nearly every hired man is in 
possession of one. The buggy does not carry a chaperon. 
Even if the girl may resent a familiarity, she cannot move 
farther away, and we may well question the custom of allowing 
young people to go out riding so freely at all hours of the 
night in such a conveyance. 

Every country girl should learn to harness a horse and to 
drive, because this makes her independent and helps to break 
the isolation of the country home. It enables the girl to 
belong to a club, to attend church, the social center, parties, 
or any other occasion that may interest her. Driving is a 
luxury in the city, which few can afford, but it lies within the 
reach of most of the people of the countryside. It is more 
attractive in the country because there is not the strain of 
dodging the endless traffic of the streets. The single buggy 
does not promote a wholesome social relationship between 
the country boys and girls. It is much overworked in this 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 119 

particular, but for pleasure driving in the daytime and as 
an aid in overcoming rural isolation it may add much to 
country life. 

Rowing and Paddling 

It is not a great accomplishment to row a boat or paddle a 
canoe. If one has the strength, it can be learned in an after- 
noon ; not so that one will be a champion, but so that he can 
get along. The ability to row and paddle often affords a 
pleasant afternoon that would not otherwise be possible, and 
in some places it may be a constant means of recreation. 
Both of these are excellent exercise. To take a boatload 
of friends across the lake or the river to spend a half holi- 
day on an island or on some high bank is one of the pleas- 
antest of occasions. It is often possible to put a tent and 
some provisions into a boat and drift down a river for a 
hundred miles or so, camping out at night on the banks, and 
replenishing the larder with fresh fish from the river and 
game from the waterside. The river often gives one an un- 
obstructed view into the heart of the forest, and one drifts 
down among the wild things so noiselessly that they are not 
even aware of one's presence. There is a sort of romance and 
sense of adventure in drifting thus with a river, and beholding 
its constant change of scene ; but, if the river is not too swift, 
it is still more vigorous and charming to row or paddle up- 
stream, as it is always more interesting to go up a narrowing 
river where the fields and the forests are constantly closing in 
upon us than it is to go down a stream that is getting wider 
and more sluggish and civilized as we proceed. The one draw- 
back to the idealism of such a life is apt to be the mosquitoes, 
but if one camps early and builds a good fire, he should not 
suffer much. Thick gloves and veils may be necessary. It 
will usually be possible to select a time when mosquitoes 
will not bother. 



I20 PLAY AND RECREATION 



AUTOMOBILING 



Young people are leaving the country for the town for 
three principal reasons : lack of society and amusements, the 
lack of adventure, and the lack of romance. The rural de- 
livery, the telephone, and the interurban trolley are each 
doing something to break the isolation ; but probably the tel- 
ephone and the rural delivery do as much to prevent socia- 
bility as to promote it, and the interurban is very limited 
in its application. Walking, riding, driving, and canoeing 
are all wholesome ways of overcoming isolation and adding 
to life something of poetry and romance and nature-love at 
the same time. Perhaps the automobile is the most effective 
means of overcoming all of these objections at once. The 
person who is the possessor of a car in a country of fairly 
good roads cannot well be isolated, for there are usually half 
a dozen towns within a drive of an hour or two. The autoist 
enlarges his range, and becomes a member of a larger neigh- 
borhood. It is only a short and delightful trip to attend church 
or the theater in a town twenty miles distant. 

The auto is rather rare in the country in general thus far, 
except in the Middle West, where it has become common in 
some sections. It is a good deal of a nuisance on country 
roads to every one except the autoists. It does not promote 
the contemplative sort of appreciation of nature, but it seems 
to offer certain experiences which the country needs. The 
young man who dashes out upon the highway in a modern 
car on a pleasant spring or summer day is following in the 
steps of the knight errant of old. He is mounted on a far 
swifter and more powerful charger, and the world lies before 
him. He can go where he will, and everywhere there is the 
possibility of an adventure or a romance. To him the country 
need not be tame or isolated. 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 12 1 

There are social advantages also in the size of the convey- 
ance for the young people. The auto is seldom built to carry 
two. It can take the family, or it may carry a party of young 
people. Almost any kind of a party of young people is better 
than the perpetual driving in the single buggy. There is, 
however, the social danger that the auto soon brings a party 
into a section where they are unknown and do not feel 
responsible. People are always more reckless under such 
conditions. 

Recreation Calendar 

In some Catholic countries there is a religious holiday in 
nearly every week, and there are processions and pageants and 
other features that furnish recreation to the people. We have 
no religious holidays in this country and only four or five of 
-any kind that are generally observed by adults. Christmas 
and the Fourth of July are great events in the child world, 
and are looked forward to for a long time. There were once 
several other festivals which were common in country sec- 
tions, such as the corn huskings, logrollings, barn raisings, 
and quiltings of pioneer days. These have disappeared, and 
there should be a persistent effort to develop others. There 
should be at least one occasion a month when the whole com- 
munity would meet together for a social time and merry- 
making. If there is no suggestion of the season that these 
occasions should be organized, the time goes by and nothing 
is done. It would be rash to make up offhand such a calendar, 
which must necessarily be the growth of years and of much 
experiment. I shall not attempt here to suggest such a series 
for the neighborhood, but it would seem that the following 
occasions might be put down on the calendar for the young 
people to begin with, and the Social Center, the Y.M.C.A., 
the Y.W.C.A., the Camp Fire Girls, and other rural organi- 
zations should undertake to organize them. 



122 PLAY AND RECREATION 



A Coasting Party 



The party should be held on a moonlight night at a house 
that is adjacent to the coasting place. Young people may 
drive over and put up their horses or blanket them for the 
evening. The party may take the form of snowshoeing, skiing, 
or coasting with a bobsled. After an hour or two out of doors 
the company should come in, crack nuts, pop corn, and have 
general social games. Coasting is more or less dangerous, 
but there is a romance about the fiying sled and the moon- 
light and the laughter that the country cannot afford to 
lose. It is one of the brightest bits of poetry that life affords. 
It is also a social occasion for the meeting of boys and girls 
that is wholly wholesome. In a level country this might be 
merely a sleigh ride, or in the South a drive. 

A Sugar Party 

The making of maple sirup is not an industry of every 
locality. It is one of the early experiences that has often gone 
with the pioneer and the forests, but a sugar party is still 
possible in many sections. At the time of the sap boiling, 
arrangements should be made for a party at the sap house. 
A moonlight night should be chosen if possible, and two or 
three of the young men should collect the young people in 
sleighs, so that the going and coming may be as pleasant as 
the party itself. The impressions of such a night are worth 
more than days or even weeks of the commonplace. The 
gaunt tree tops, the dark shadows, and the gleaming snow 
are engraved on the memory in enduring lines. The back- 
ward glance still sees the sap house stand under its sheltering 
trees as though it were yesterday. The glow of the fire, the 
smell of the sweetened steam, all these go into the picture, 
to which youth and joy and love and romance lend their own 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 123 

brilliant colors. To make the occasion perfect the girls should 
make the biscuits on the spot. The wax that is made on the 
snow with the right partner is not to be compared with any 
other confection made by human hands. Surely such a feast 
the Greeks must have had in mind when they spoke of the 
ambrosia of the gods. Such an evening is apt to be a max- 
imal experience in the lives of the young people who take 
part. It stirs the nature to its inner depths, arouses dormant 
sympathies and interests, and brings into action faculties that 
otherwise might have slumbered on to the end. It is beyond 
price in human values, and all life is richer for it. 

A Corn Roast 

In some places something more exciting than a corn roast 
can doubtless be planned for the early autumn, but it may be 
made the occasion anywhere for a picnic, a boat trip, or a 
pleasant ride or gallop to some neighboring lake or stream. 
The corn roast might be either an afternoon or an evening 
occasion, according to the desire of the company. Probably 
in most cases it will be more attractive to make the roast a 
feature of an afternoon picnic. In that case it is well to put 
the supper pretty late, so as to get the effect of the camp fire 
while roasting the corn. There is nothing unusual or wonder- 
ful about it, but it makes a good social occasion. 

Picnics 

Almost the only form of community recreation in the open 
country is the picnic. The picnic, as it now exists, is mostly 
a Sunday-school affair intended chiefly for the little children, 
but it is well adapted to promote the social life of the young 
men and women. The great evil of society in the country in 
general is that so far as the young people are concerned it 



124 PLAY AND RECREATION 

is a society of two and two, and tliere are very few occasions 
when a wliole neighborhood meets. A society of two and two 
is always dangerous, because it lacks the restraint of public 
opinion. It needs a vigorous group-sociability back of indi- 
vidual '" sparking." The picnic grove should have facilities 
for boating and swimming and all sorts of games and tourna- 
ments. The lunch is an advantage, as it draws the group 
together. If young men more frequently had a chance to 
sample the cooking of the ladies of their choice, it would 
doubtless lead to a considerable improvement in cooking, 
wiser choices, and greater domestic happiness. It is a good 
thing if there can be a bonfire, so that corn and potatoes 
or marsh mallows may be roasted on the spot. At times the 
wagons of the consolidated school or a hayrack may be used 
to collect and distribute the young people, so as to make a 
social occasion of the going and coming as well as the picnic 
itself. In many localities there are numerous places where 
a delightful time might be had, which would have the charm 
of novelty and wildness in addition to all of the natural 
advantages of the location. The picnic already exists in the 
country, and it can easily be developed to be the center of 
the social life for four or five months of the year. If the pic- 
nic grove may be at the consolidated school, and the picnic 
may become a regular occasion for Saturday afternoons from 
April to November, it will be ideal. This would give an 
opportunity for all the tournaments and matched games that 
there seems to be no opportunity for at present. In the 
colder months the meetings may take place in the consoli- 
dated school, and thus a real social center for the country 
may be built up. Such picnics and meetings would do much 
to introduce the spirit of play and joy and sociability into the 
open country and to keep the boys and girls on the farm. It 
is a practical solution of the isolation of the open country. 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 125 

A number of school districts are making use of a tree claim 

and an adjoining school yard in this way in Barnes County, 

North Dakota. 

Camping Out 

Camping out is an experience that every girl and every 
boy should have. It is one of the movements that is coming 
in through a number of new organizations and through a new 
appreciation of its value. The Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., 
the Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, the settlements, 
the institutional churches, and a number of private schools 
now either have a permanent camp or else camp out in dif- 
ferent places each year. In nearly every case the campers 
are city boys and girls. They liave to pay their railroad 
fares from and to the city and purchase all of the equipment 
and provisions that are needed. The boys and girls in the 
country have a peculiar advantage in regard to camping. 
There is usually a place not far away to which they can drive 
in two or three hours' time. All of the implements that are 
necessary in order to make a camp and establish themselves 
are at hand. If tents are available, the cost of a week's camp- 
ing out need not be any greater than a week at home. 

Country girls need the experience as much or more than 
city girls. There have been long aeons of human history 
in which our ancestors have gathered around the camp fire 
at night, when they have led lives by the streams and in the 
forest. The brain has been developed through such experi- 
ences, and it responds to them as it can to no others. There 
are certain sides of our nature that will be undeveloped if we 
have not had the camp fire for our teacher. The experience 
that softens the heart and kindles friendship and the imagi- 
nation is no less educative than the knowledge that instructs 
the head. Camping intensifies friendship, and friendship fur- 
nishes the motive and the reward of the most of our efforts. 



126 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



It doubles our strength for achievement. It gives us most 
of the joy of Hfe. It is the riches of the spirit and quite as 
worthy of effort as wealth or learning. A group that have 
camped out together for a week will be better friends for 
the rest of their lives. Camping tends especially to bring 
up the memory of pioneer days. It is a valuable experience 
for one who h^s always slept in the house merely to sleep 
in a tent. The new surroundings call up new thoughts and 




A PLAYGROUND CAMP NEAR HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA 

rouse one to new possibilities. The girl who has never been 
away from home is apt to be very dependent. Camping is 
one of the best ways in the world to teach self-reliance. 
Country life tends to be tame and monotonous, altogether 
too much so for high-spirited young people. Camping brings 
in a touch of romance and adventure such as rural life once 
had, but which it has largely lost. 

Perhaps the farm wife needs a vacation more than any 
other person in the country, yet thus far she has never had 
one. It is difficult for her to get the time, and the expense 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 127 

of summer resorts seems prohibitive to a class who are accus- 
tomed to very meager expenditures in money. So far as the 
farm wife ever has a vacation it is ahnost invariably in the 
form of a visit to a relative. A vacation is usually thought 
to be impossible for her. It is impossible, if she thinks it is ; 
but most impossibilities lie in the imagination. There are 
times when it would be difficult for her to get away, and 
there are also times after the corn is planted in the spring, 
after the wheat is harvested, and toward the end of August 
when farm work is not very pressing and when it would be 
quite possible to leave the house in the care of an older 
daughter or a hired girl or a neighbor, and for the most of 
the family to go off for a vacation of a week or two. If the 
farm wife has camped out as a girl, this will be apt to appeal 
to her. It will not be a life without work, but the work need 
not be strenuous, and there is the change of scene and the 
out-of-door life. A mere change of scene often suffices to 
dispel our worries. 

Extensive equipment is not needed. The simpler the 
furnishings of a tent the more comfortable everybody always 
is. Every farm home ought to own a tent, as it serves as a 
playhouse for the children and aids in many of their dra- 
matic games. It gives an opportunity for the boys at least to 
sleep out during the warmer parts of the year, and there 
are almost limitless possibilities in the way of camping, hunt- 
ing, fishing, picnicking, and inexpensive travel if one has a 
tent that are scarcely possible without one. A tent is a real 
safeguard against tuberculosis and a developer of courage, 
hardihood, and imagination. Besides tents, the camping party 
will need bedding, cooking utensils, niatches, an ax, a toilet 
set, a change of clothes, hammocks, and a few books and 
games for rainy days. For the sake of courage and peace of 
mind it will be well to have a gun or two also, and a big dog 



128 PLAY AND RECREATION 

to guard the camp against mischief and prowlers. Guns 
will also be useful for target practice, and a dog is often an 
advantage, as some one may get lost. 

A camping party ought always to be a group of friends or 
at least people who only lack intimacy in order to become so. 
It would be best that the girls should belong to the same 
club or Sunday-school class or Camp Fire. There ought to 
be ten or twelve of an average age of not less than fifteen, 
and some girls of eighteen or so if possible. There should 
be a chaperon or leader, of course. Here is likely to be the 
greatest difficulty, as chaperons do not grow on farms. If 
there is a county Y.W.C.A. or an organization of the Camp 
Fire Girls or the leader of a girls' Sunday-school class 
who is not too busy, the leaders of these groups would be the 
natural chaperons of such a camp ; but even if these organ- 
izations do not exist, it is probable that a diligent search will 
still reveal available material of some sort in the neighborhood. 

It would be well, perhaps necessary, for the girls to bring 
some of their older brothers or fathers along to help lay out 
the camp and get things started. A site should be selected 
with good drainage. It should overlook, if possible, some 
pleasant body of water where there will be an opportunity 
for swimming, fishing, and boating. It should be located in 
the woods for the sake of the shade and the fire wood. It 
should be on high ground away from any swamp or marsh, 
so as to avoid the mosquitoes. It should be near a spring or 
some other source of good drinking water. It is well to pitch 
the three or four tents that are needed around a hollow square 
or in a semicircle, so as to have the camp fire in the center 
at night. It adds to the charm if the fire shines up on the 
branches and trunks of great forest trees, If it is in the land 
of the hemlock and balsam, the best bed in the world can be 
made of the smaller branches, or one can make a real spring 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 129 

mattress by laying light saplings across logs and putting the 
boughs on top of them. There should be about four girls to 
a tent. 

The days may well be spent in swimming, rowing, games, 
and making collections of flowers, etc. But the nights ought 
to be the most attractive times in camp. It is then that the 
camp fire draws its circle together, and experiences are related 
and plans made for the morrow. It is the time for confidences 
and songs and stories. Sometimes during the encampment 
it would be well for the girls to give a party and invite their 
friends. Such a camp in prospect and in memory will keep 
the days a long time before and after from being dull. 

The Social Center 

In order to carry out the social program that has been 
outlined thus far it is necessary that there should be some 
organization of the social life. This cannot well take place 
unless there is some common meeting ground or social cen- 
ter, for the reason that the young people as a whole in country 
communities now meet together so seldom that organization 
is practically impossible. It is necessary either that there 
shall be some place where they can meet at certain times 
or that there shall be an organizer in the community of 
more than usual ability. At the social center there should 
be some section if possible that is especially reserved for 
the young people, or at any rate some opportunity should 
be provided for them to get together by themselves occa- 
sionally, though they should also meet at times with the 
others. This would make possible the organization of clubs, 
camps, athletic contests, camp fires, or any other groups that 
seemed desirable. 



130 PLAY AND RECREATION 

Social Morality in the Country 

There is no prostitution in the country, but there is prob- 
ably no less of the social vice there than in the city. This 
complicates the problems, as it also furnishes the most urgent 
reason for organized recreation for the youths and maidens 
of the country districts. For the most part there is almost 
no society foi" country young people except mixed society. 
The work of the farm and the farm home often seems rather 
tame to high-spirited young people. If the girl remains in 
the country, there is no other business open to her except the 
management of some farm home, and her thoughts are natu- 
rally turned toward marriage. The young lawyer or doctor 
may live in a boarding house, but there are no boarding 
houses in the country ; a wife is a part of the necessary 
equipment of the farmer. Farm life is monotonous ; the 
romance which is craved by all youth may not find that 
vicarious expression in art, music, the drama, and social 
service as it may in the city ; it is almost entirely con- 
centrated around the experience of love. It is difiicult to 
weave romances about those who are so intimately known as 
are the country neighbors' sons, and hence the tendency for 
sentiment to slip down to its physical basis in sex. Coun- 
try girls, as a rule, do not have chaperons, but nevertheless 
they are allowed to go freely with the young men without 
this safeguard. In the unorganized community the walks 
and drives are generally solitary, and there are abundant 
opportunities for seclusion. There is often not much to talk 
about or to divert the mind from fundamental impulses, and 
a temptation that is dwelt upon is generally yielded to in the 
end. The organization of society is one of the greatest safe- 
guards against this condition. If there is a vigorous social 
life among the young people of the community, there will be 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 131 

less of the solitary kind of two-and-two society, and universal 
custom requires a pretty high standard of conduct in company. 
The young person who has a full and satisfying social life 
has an abundance of things to think about, so that the mind 
is not so apt to dwell on instinctive desires. Perhaps the 
strongest restraint that can be imposed upon the individual 
is the restraint of public opinion, and public opinion is strong 
in proportion as the contact of the members of the society or 
community is intimate. A girl or boy who is leading a life 
of monotonous drudgery is apt to become reckless in his 
craving for excitement and adventure. Public opinion is 
almost ineffective if he or she has no general society. We 
are not much disgraced by anything that may happen to us 
among strangers, but we feel its sting in pretty close propor- 
tion to the intimacy of those who are aware of the facts. 
These well-known psychological laws seem to indicate that 
the organization of society in the country will be the greatest 
safeguard of country morality. 

Dancing 

The sentiment of the country church and the country itself 
has been almost uniformly against dancing. Its contentions 
have probably been wise. The dances that have been held 
in the country have generally not been safe places for boys 
and girls to go. There can be no question of the social dan- 
gers inherent in dancing at its best, and dances that have no 
safeguards, that are held in the woods or in hotels for un- 
chaperoned parties of young people, where the tough comes 
with his whisky bottle — and some are sure to have taken too 
much — are as dangerous as dances in the city dives. There 
is, however, a great new interest in dancing at the present 
time ; in many of the high schools and some of the ele- 
mentary schools about the country both girls and boys are 



132 PLAY AND RECREATION 

being taught to dance. The churches are changing their 
attitude toward dancing, and there is hkely to be a great 
deal more dancing in the country than there has been. The 
dangers inherent in dancing are such that, if it is practiced, 
every possible safeguard should be thrown around it. Dances 
should not be held in the woods or country hotels, drinking 
should not be allowed, and careful parents should see that 
their girls are chaperoned. The only places where dancing 
is likely to be reasonably safe are the church, the school, 
the grange, the social center, and the private house. Of 
course it is difficult to safeguard the way home, and this 
danger should be recognized. Some dances and some meth- 
ods of dancing are more dangerous than others. All kinds 
of dancing where the partner is drawn close to the person 
should be frowned upon and rigorously excluded ; girls should 
refuse to dance with the " buggers." If the dances can be 
held at the social center, where the whole community is in 
attendance and the dancing is only one feature on the even- 
ing's program, it is as safe as dancing can be made and is 
one of the best ways to promote sociability. It must be 
remembered that a considerable part of the danger of the 
country dance is due to the fact that dancing is generally 
tabooed and has to seek out-of-the-way places for its expres- 
sion. So also the taboo keeps away the better class of young 
people who are careful of their reputations and leaves it to 
those who are more or less reckless. One cannot expect much 
but demoralization from dancing under such conditions. 

Something might be done in most communities in the 
way of substituting the old square dances — the Virginia reel, 
the quadrille, and the minuet — for the omnipresent waltz and 
two-step. There is also a great interest in folk dancing just 
now. Folk dancing is very vigorous, — one of the best forms 
of physical training we have, — so that it is now used in 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 133 

nearly all gymnasiums purely for its physical value. Folk 
dances as a rule have almost no social dangers. They offer an 
excellent opportunity for getting acquainted and might be pro- 
moted in a neighborhood where any other kind of dancing 
would be frowned upon. If the community will take the ini- 
tiative in teaching the girls folk dancing, they will probably 
be doing as much as can be done to protect them from the 
dangers of the other type. A Victrola machine with ten folk- 
dance records can be purchased for about fifty dollars, so 
folk dancing may be independent of the musicians. 

The County Y.W.C.A. 

The great need of the social life in the country is organi- 
zation and leadership. In whatever form this leadership 
comes, if it has wholesome ideals behind it, it should be 
welcome. The county Y.W.C.A. is still too new an institu- 
tion for one to plan for it in any particular county with the 
expectation that it will be found there. It is yet in its first 
stages of development, and only a few counties have been 
organized, but it appeals to such a fundamental need that it 
is safe to predict for it the same rapid development that 
the county Y.M.C.A. has had. Its work is along much the 
same lines — Bible study, athletics, canning and cooking 
clubs, camping in the summer, and an annual conference or 
convention. All these things are much needed by country 
girls, and any one who will organize them for the country 
community should surely be welcome. If any country com- 
munity becomes interested in the welfare of its girls, it may 
well take the initiative in getting this work started. Miss Jes- 
sie Field of New York City is the national secretary and 
would be glad to cooperate with communities that wish to 
make a beginninof. 



134 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



The Camp Eire Girls 

The Camp Fire Girls is an organization recently formed 
by Dr. and Mrs. Luther Gulick. It resembles in many ways 
the Boy Scouts. In fact, it has been developed largely on 
account of the desire of some girls to become scouts. While 
its name speaks of the camp fire, a better name might really 
be Fireside Girls, as it is a method of lending a certain 
romance to the labors and duties of the home, to get the girl 




THE FESTIVAL OF THE FIRST FIRE MAKER, HANOUM CAMP FIRE GIRLS 

to acquire as a part of an initiation into a romantic organiza- 
tion the knowledge that she will need as a woman and a 
mother. In a way it resembles the initiation ceremonies of 
many primitive tribes which are given by the old women at 
the time of puberty. This initiation teaches the secret knowl- 
edge and mysteries of the tribe and may be regarded as a 
preparation for marriage. 

There are three orders of the Camp Fire Girls, as there 
are also of the Boy Scouts. The first is the Wood Gatherer, 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 135 

corresponding to the Tenderfoot Scout. Before a girl can 
become a Wood Gatherer she must be able to repeat the 
following : 

It is my desire to become a Camp Fire Girl and to obey the law of 
the Camp Fire, which is 

Seek 'beauty, 
Give service, 
Pursue knowledge, 
Be trustworthy, 
Hold on to health, 
Glorify work. 

The girl who has become a Wood Gatherer is allowed to 
wear a green chevron on her sleeve to indicate that fact. There 
is also an inexpensive silver ring that is one of the badges 
of the order. Girls from twelve years of age to twenty are eli- 
gible for membership. A troop consists of from six to twenty 
girls. The leader, who is supposed to be an adult, is called 
the Warder of the Fire. The girls come together weekly, and 
once a month they hold a ceremonial meeting or council fire. 
At this gathering the girls are supposed to wear, if possible, 
their ceremonial dress, which is of galatea of a special pattern. 
This dress may be made by the girls themselves at a cost of 
about sixty cents. Before a girl can be advanced to the second 
degree, the Fire Maker, she must acquire a number of honors, 
which means that she shall acquire skill in certain housewifely 
and motherly arts. She must be able to cook, make bread of 
two different sorts, prepare ten different kinds of soups, 
recognize three different baby cries and the meaning of 
each, know the chief causes of infant mortality and the 
way at least one city has reduced the rate. The girls are 
supposed to sleep with their windows open and to learn 
how to swim. They are encouraged to take long walks and 



136 PLAY AND RECREATION 

to obsei"ve the common birds and flowers. Before a girl can 
be a Fire Mals:er she must be able to repeat : 

As fuel is brought to the fire, 

So I purpose to bring 

My strength, 

My ambition. 

My heart's desire, 

My joy, 

And my sorrow 

To the fire 

Of human kind ; 

For I will tend, 

As my fathers' fathers 

Since time began. 

The fire that is called 

The love of man for man, 

The love of man for God. 

The third degree is that of Torch Bearer. Before a girl 
may attain to this degree she must have mastered many 
things in the distinctly feminine arts, and she must also 
have trained at least three other girls in some of the honors 
of the lower degrees. The training that is given for the 
Camp Fire Girls is much more fundamental and important 
than the training that is given in most schools. It is educa- 
tion in the arts of living, in health and strength, in a love 
for nature, and in skill in doing the things that the house- 
wife is supposed to know — the craft of the home and the 
mother and, in its later honors, the craft of citizenship as well. 
Over all is thrown the glamor and romance of the camp fire 
and ceremonial. The great difficulty that faces the move- 
ment is that there are very few women who have the training 
or time to be Warders of the Camp Fire, and without a leader 
the Camp Fire is impossible. I should like to see it put 
into the program of the public high school. I would let the 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 137 

girls have Friday afternoon of each week under their regular 
teachers for their camp fire. The training of the camp fire is 
the training that the country girl most needs. It is the sort 
of training that will help her to enjoy the open country on the 
one hand, and that will fit her to organize its home and com- 
munity life on the other. Still it is hard to see how she can 
get it, at present at least. It would be very difficult indeed 




A GKOL'P OF fAMl' FIRK CIRLS FRO^F SPKlXGFIFLn. ^FASSACHl'SFTTS 



to find women in the country who could take the time or 
who would be willing and able to be Warders of the Camp 
Fire. At present most country girls do not attend school 
much after they are old enough to be Camp Fire Girls. How- 
ever, the problem of the country village is almost identical 
with that of the farm, and the young people are often worse 
off from a surplus of idleness than the farm young people 
are from a surplus of work. The village is near to nature 
for the nature lore and hikes. The girls have the time, and 



138 PLAY AND RECREATION 

it should not be impossible to find the leadership that is 
required. The village is the best place there is for the 
organization of the order. 

One is led to wonder, in going over the ritual, if it would 
not have been better to have restored the old-time ritual of 
puberty, with its initiation into the secrets and mysteries of 
the tribe — • to make the Camp Fire, even more than it is at 
present, a training for marriage. This fact is borne in upon 
us by the fact that marriage and the bearing of children are 
usually the supreme facts in a woman's life, and that the 
schools are doing nothing whatever in most places and little 
anywhere to prepare a woman either for this relationship or 
for the trade of the housewife. In olden times the girls were 
pretty adequately trained in the home for this position, but 
this is no longer true. We should not expect a young man 
to get married until he had learned some trade or profes- 
sion, so that he was capable of making a living and sup- 
porting a family. The woman has her trade to learn no 
less. She needs to know the housewifely arts, to be able to 
keep accounts and do the marketing, to care for children, 
and to make her home attractive. This is as much her work 
as medicine or agriculture is her husband's. In Europe a 
girl is supposed to have mastered these housewifely arts 
before her debut in society, but here many of the girls enter 
upon matrimony absolutely unprepared for nearly all its duties. 
Already the Camp Fire Girls are receiving much of this train- 
ing ; only a little more is needed. The badge or uniform of 
the Torch Bearer ought to signify that this girl has mastered 
the arts that a woman should know and that she is eligible 
for marriage. If it were so understood, it would doubtless 
add to the popularity of the order. The Camp Fire manual 
can be obtained by writing to the headquarters, Grace Parker, 
Secretary, ii8 East 28th Street, New York City. 



RECREATION FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL 139 

Summary 

Many are sure to say by the time they have reached this 
point, if they persist so long, that this is all very well, but the 
country girl has much work to do, and she has not time for 
all these things that have been enumerated. I do not think 
this is so. All that I have mentioned and more can easily 
be done in one afternoon and two evenings a week, and 




CAMP FIRE GIRLS LEARXIXG TO COOK OUT OF DOORS 

every girl should have at least that much for her recreation 
and social life. To give her less will be to make life dull 
and tame, to crowd out of it most of the romance and adven- 
ture which can make it seem significant and which can give 
it breadth and color for later years. If the country cannot 
afford this much time for life, it cannot keep the young people 
on the farm. A large and satisfying life, not dollars, is the 
supreme need of each individual, and no amount of prosperity 
can compensate one for a life that is not worth living. Let 



I40 PLAY AND RECREATION 

not the indulgent parent think that by working the girl twelve 
hours a day he can clothe her in silks and leave her an ample 
dower. A princess in rags is always better than a beggar in 
ermine. The best dower that any girl can bring to her life 
partner is health and wifely arts and a loving, joyous spirit. 
He who would choose millions in preference to these quali- 
ties is not worthy of a noble woman, because he shows by his 
choice that he cannot appreciate her. There is much of sor- 
didness and meanness in life, of course ; but, despite it all, a 
dower of health and love and intelligence will ever bring 
more admirers that are worth while than a fine farm or a 
large inheritance. If we sacrifice the youth of our girls to 
the Moloch of profits, we surely sell the future for a pittance. 
Child labor on the farm is beyond the reach of the law, but 
it should not be beyond the reach of the farmer's conscience. 
He should realize that he has no right to rob the future 
home of his daughter and make her a slave instead of a 
princess, in order to save the washing bill or to avoid the 
cost of labor-savino- devices in the house. 



CHAPTER X 

THE BOY SCOUTS THE SALVATION OF THE 
VILLAGE BOY 

During the last four years the order of the Boy Scouts 
has been organized in every country in the civihzed world. 
There are at present probably, in the various patrols, more 
than three million scouts, a number equal to the standing 
army of Russia. In this country the order is less than four 
years old, yet there are already five hundred thousand scouts, 
and a whole library of books devoted to scouting. Perhaps 
at no time before in the history of the world has a social 
movement taken so strong a hold on the public imagination. 
Whenever an idea spreads as this one has done, it must 
come as the satisfaction of a long-felt want. There is no expla- 
nation, unless there is some intimate relationship between its 
ideals and the natural ideals of adolescent boys. 

Sources of the Movement 

The honor of founding the order belongs to General 
Baden-Powell, the hero of Mafeking. He discovered that in 
times of peace, army life was very uninteresting to the men, 
and there were constant desertions. He sought to make it 
more interesting and hit upon scouting as the means. He 
had thought of it as a purely military expedient, but on his 
return from the war he was surprised to find that the manual 
that he had drawn up for his men had been adopted by sev- 
eral private schools in England. This led him to think that 
it might be well fitted for boys everywhere, and he was led 

141 



142 PLAY AND RECREATION 

to revise and enlarge his manual. In doing this he got many 
suggestions from the Society of the Sons of Daniel Boone, 
which had been founded by Dan Beard several years before, 
and from the Woodcraft Indians which had been organized 
with similar purposes by Thompson Seton. The bands of the 
Woodcraft Indians already numbered one hundred thousand 
boys, and Seton was conducting a training class in New York 
for the leaders o'f these bands. Baden-Powell, himself, did not 
consider that we needed the Boy Scouts in this country be- 
cause of these other organizations and the boys' department 
of the Y.M.C.A. The Macedonian call, " Come over and help 
us," which came to him while he was in the midst of his work 
of promotion in Canada, was a complete surprise to Powell. 

On the organization of the Boy Scouts of America, the 
Sons of Daniel Boone and the Woodcraft Indians came in 
as a part of the new order ; and Powell says that we have 
here in America the strongest organization of the Boy Scouts 
there is. The Boy Scouts is often criticized as a military 
organization ; but the founder always insists that the work is 
to be '" peace scouting " and must not be military in any sense. 
He says that the boys will sicken of the military drill, and 
while tactics are probably the easiest thing to give them, the 
boys will soon give up the practice. In this country we really 
have the Sons of Daniel Boone, the Woodcraft Indians, and 
the boys' department of the Y.M.C.A. in the dress of Powell's 
Scouts. Outside the uniform, the patrol organization, the 
name, and an occasional drill which is not encouraged, the 
Boy Scouts of America have nothing military about them. 
The order is trying to develop the sturdy virtues of the 
pioneer and the love of outdoor life rather than soldierly 
virtues or vices. 

The manual is the sort of book that ought to be in the 
hands of every adolescent boy. It covers essentially the 



THE BOY SCOUTS 



143 




BOY SCOUTS LEARNING THE SECRETS OF FIELD AND FOREST 



virtues and accomplishments that are fundamental to youth. 
The scout must be familiar with nature ; he should recognize 
all the birds, animals, fish, and flowers. He should be able 
to follow a trail and to find his way in the wilderness, to camp 



I4'4 PLAY AND RECREATION 

out and cook his own food. He should acquire the arts of 
the pioneer and the Indian. He is to avoid the wretched 
butchery of game that so often characterizes tlie city hunter, 
for " the scout does not kill animals or birds except for food." 
He must practice the self-reliance and hardihood of the 
wilderness. These are virtues that appeal to every boy. They 
are the best possible antidotes for the idleness and coddling 
of so many fond homes. 

The boys* department of the Y.M.C.A. has added to the 
scouts the idea of chivalry, which has two fundamental con- 
cepts, that of honor and that of courtesy to women and the weak 
and aged. These are essentially adolescent virtues, most easily 
taught at this age. They add a sense of romance and dignity 
to the order. They also are essentially virile virtues of a 
crude but vigorous age. Some of us realize to our sorrow 
that a tradesman's word is not always as good as his bond, 
— that an assurance that a thing will be clone falls short of 
a guaranty, — and the business world should welcome any 
sort of order that will create and promote this sense of honor. 
Young America has, as a rule, much of the outer show of 
gallantry toward women, but this does not always represent 
that respect, almost veneration, that chivalry was supposed to 
stand for. At its best, chivalry is probably the best safeguard 
we have against the social evil. 

There are two chapters in the manual that come from the 
modern movement for health and athletics. These are ex- 
cellent practical hints in caring for the health, and the games 
are a good series of outdoor games, such as any company 
of boys would play with pleasure. These are for the most 
part real scout games, which involve skill in woodcraft and 
scoutcraft. 



THE BOY SCOUTS 145 

First Aid and Life-Saving 

Scouting promotes the heroic virtues and offers bronze, 
silver, and gold medals for deeds of heroism. Nothing could 
be more salutary than this promotion of courage. It invites 
the boy to run into danger, but only that he may rescue 
another. The order gives him its hero medal when he does it. 
Baden-Powell tells a story of a boy who saw a runaway team 
in the suburbs of London. He got into the wagon, climbed 
out on the wagon tongue, and knocked the horses' heads 
together until " he knocked some sense into them." He was 
given a medal for his bravery, and there followed a regular 
epidemic of stopping runaway horses. Recently I saw a horse 
running away down a crowded street. There was an eight- 
or nine-year-old boy in the carriage. The street contained a 
goodly number of automobiles and carriages and its usual 
quota of people on foot; but even the autos scurried to the 
gutter, and not a person lifted his hand. We evidently need 
some of this scout training. There have been a number of 
cases where scouts have saved people from drowning, and not 
a few where they have made rescues from fire. The first aid 
is more or less necessary to scouts, because their scouting 
often leads them about the wilderness, where they are by 
themselves. Injuries are likely to occur, and they will be 
helpless if they cannot render this assistance themselves. 

Patriotism 

The scouts seek to inculcate patriotism through teaching 
respect for the flag, and the history of the United States. 
The scout pledges himself "to do his duty to God and his 
country." 



146 PLAY AND RECREATION 

The Scout Patrol 

Scouts are organized into patrols of eight boys. Each 
patrol has a leader and an assistant leader. The leader is 
generally an older boy. Three or more patrols constitute a 
troop, and a troop is in charge of a scout master, who must 
be an adult. Boys from twelve to eighteen years of age may 
become memb'ers of a patrol. The scout often wears a uni- 
form of khaki and on his hikes carries a " billy " that re- 
sembles a knapsack. This organization of the patrol and the 
uniform suggest the military origin of the order, but there 
is little else that is military about it. 

The Scout Oath and Orders 
On becoming" a scout the boy takes the following oath : 

On my honor I will do my best : 

1. To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the scout 
law ; 

2. To help other people at all times ; 

3. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally 
straight. 

The scout law may be summed up as the Ten Command- 
ments, with several social virtues added. 

There are three common orders of scouts. The first degree 
is that of a Tenderfoot, who must be able to pass the follow- 
ing requirements : 

1. Know the scout law, sign, salute, and significance of the badge. 

2. Know the composition and history of the national flag and the 
customary forms of respect clue to it. 

3. Tie four out of the following knots : square reef, sheet bend, bow- 
line, fisherman's, sheepshank, halter, clove hitch, timber hitch, or two 
half hitches. 



THE BOY SCOUTS 147 

In order to advance from this lowest order to become a 
second-class scout, he must gain proficiency in a number of 
outdoor arts, and he must have saved up and deposited at 
least one dollar. In order to become a first-class scout he 
must be proficient, in general, in the arts of woodcraft and 
campcraft, know first aid, have at least two dollars in the sav- 
ings bank, and have enlisted a boy who has been trained by 
himself as a Tenderfoot, After a boy has become a first-class 
scout he may go on to become a life scout, a Star scout, and 
an Eagle scout by acquiring proficiency in a number of arts 
and industries, such as agriculture, blacksmithing, athletics, 
swimming, surveying, etc. For each of these he must take 
an examination and will receive a merit badge if he passes. 
The life scout must get five of these badges, the Star scout 
ten, and the Eagle scout twenty-one. In acquiring these merit 
badges it is not considered that the boy is really learning a 
trade, but he is learning to be handy along the lines of certain 
trades. He is getting the groundwork on which technical 
skill can be built later. It is almost necessary that the first 
steps be taken early if the boy is ever to be a master work- 
man, and this training is a much-needed supplement to the 
work that the schools are giving. 

Popularity of the Boy Scouts 

Why have the Boy Scouts had their marvelous popularity ? 
I do not suppose that ever before in the history of the world 
has an order been organized in all civilized countries in so 
short a time as has the Boy Scouts. The growth of the order 
seems greatly to strengthen the position of the theoiy known 
in education and anthropology as the recapitulation theoiy, 
which is that " the individual repeats the history of the race." 
In other words the child is a primitive man ; he climbs up 
to civilization by much the same stages, has much the same 



148 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



interests along the way, as had the race in its progress. The 
individual child is constantly conditioned in this progress by 
imitating the actions of a later period, by the advice and en- 
couragement that is given him for different kinds of excel- 
lence. Yet his deepest interests are the same as were those 
of the race at his stage of development. The boy enters at 
puberty upon the period that is in general characterized by the 
tribal life. Its chief activities are hunting, fishing, fighting. 








A TROOP OF BOY SCOUTS ON A HIKE 



It is a wild, free life in an environment of nature. It is a 
time of courage, sometimes of cruelty, of physical hardihood, 
of close observation, and a simple strategy that is closely 
akin to the cunning of some of the higher animals. These 
are the fundamental interests of boys everywhere at this 
period of development. It is at this time that the boy first 
forms his gang, that he begins to play team games. He 
wants to hunt and fish, to camp out and sit around the fire. 
His reading is mostly tales of adventure. He admires above all 
other things independence and daring. These are essentially 



THE BOY SCOUTS 149 

the virtues that are promoted by the Boy Scouts, although it 
has aimed to substitute the interest of the naturalist for the 
love of the hunter, and it has introduced a number of moral 
precepts which do not psychologically belong to the adoles- 
cent period, 

I am inclined to think that the order is at present suppress- 
ing too much the military ideal. For the soldier is one of 
the natural ideals of the adolescent boy. It has to contribute 
the ideals of obedience, neatness, and orderliness. It does 
not follow at all that the boy will be inclined to war when he 
grows up, because he has had military drill as a boy. In fact, 
I believe it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect upon 
him. The soldier's duty is always more attractive in prospect 
than it is in realization. Baden-Powell advises against fre- 
quent military drills, because he says that " it always makes 
the boys sick of it." If a boy has had his military craving 
satisfied in this way in his boyhood, he will not carry over an 
unsatisfied craving to later years, where it may cause trouble. 
The Boy Scouts are now organized in every country of the 
civilized world. In the near future we may look for inter- 
national encampments and meetings. It is this knitting to- 
gether of peoples across national boundaries, the meeting in 
conferences and conventions, that is one of the greatest 
safeguards against war, and the chances of a world peace 
are probably improved rather than lessened through the 
organization of the scouts. 

As the scout virtues are essentially adolescent virtues, 
I cannot but wonder if twelve is not a year or two too young 
for a boy to be a scout. The ideals of the order seem to 
represent a period that usually begins about two years later, 
and while the little boy wants to imitate the big boy, it is not - 
always a good thing to let him do it. Precocity is apt to lead 
to the feeble development of function. I do not think that the 



ISO PLAY AND RECREATION 

boy who takes it up at twelve will ever find it quite as inter- 
esting as he would if he had waited until a year or two later. 
The older boys of sixteen or seventeen do not wish to associ- 
ate with these boys of twelve, and it will almost surely detract 
from the good comradery of the camp, which is one of its 
essential virtues. If a boy becomes a scout at fourteen and 
remains a member of the troop until he is eighteen, he is a 
scout for four years, which is long enough. 

Difficulty of securing Scout Masters 

If scouting represents and teaches the virtues of the chiv- 
alric age of adolescence, is it not a training which every boy 
should have ? I believe it is. It is a more fundamental train- 
ing in manliness, virtue, self-reliance, and efficiency than the 
boy is getting out of the school. It is certainly one of the 
best safeguards against the peculiar temptations and vices of 
puberty. It develops the good fellowship for which there is 
at that time such a craving, and which is apt to ripen into the 
friendships of a lifetime. Friendship creates most of the joy 
and ultimate values of life, but we are thus far doing almost 
nothing to create it. Here we are met with an obstacle which 
seems to be almost insuperable. There are very few men who 
have the necessary training for scout masters or who have 
the time or the inclination to render this important service. 
It is difficult to get the people to take courses of training to 
prepare them to render a service that will not be compensated. 
Hence I believe that the order can never come into its own 
until it becomes a part of the public school work and is re- 
quired of all boys. It is already required in a number of 
private schools and, I understand, in all the public schools of 
Russia, where its military side will doubtless be emphasized. 
Why not dismiss the upper grades at noon on Friday and let 
the older girls have their camp fire and the boys have scouting ? 



THE BOY SCOUTS 151 

This could not well be worked in the one-room rural school, 
and it would require nearly as many men teachers as women 
teachers in order to carry it out. But there are many new sub- 
jects, especially the industrial ones, and games and athletics 
that are also demanding more men teachers. Friday afternoon 
does not usually amount to much for school work. Its present 
value is not comparable to the value that might come from the 
practice of the arts of the Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls. 
This would apply especially to the high-school age, and the 
high school is probably the place to try the experiment. 

Should be a Part of the School Work 

A number of things that scouting is teaching are the ones 
most fundamental to the welfare of the country — the love of 
nature and the open-air life, self-reliance, observation, coop- 
eration, good fellowship. These are what the country needs. 
The rural community might even do well to exchange the 
education of the rural school for such a training. However, 
under existing circumstances a satisfactory organization of the 
scouts is practically impossible in the open country, because 
there are no scout masters available, because the boys of four- 
teen and over are too widely scattered about the community 
to get together easily, and because thus far the country has not 
found the time for the boys to have the meetings. Again, some 
social center is almost absolutely necessary if the scouts are to 
be organized in the country at present, unless they can be or- 
ganized through the county Y.M.C.A. or through the Sunday 
school, because there is no other place where boys who have 
finished the elementary school meet together. As there are veiy 
few counties having the county Y.M.C.A., regular Sunday- 
school classes for boys with competent leaders, or social cen- 
ters, it is safe to say that at present any satisfactory organization 
of the Boy Scouts is well-nigh impossible in the open country. 



152 ' PLAY AND RECREATION 



Boy Scouts for the Village 



It has been said, " God made the country, man made the 
town, but the Devil made the Httle country village." The 
country or suburban village is the most attractive place of resi- 
dence in many ways that there is. The garden village seems 
to be the ideal toward which our housing and town-planning 
movements are tending. In the village one may have a house 
to himself. He may have a yard and a garden, and room and 
safety for the play of the little children. If he wishes to walk 
or drive, it is only a short distance to the open country. But 
for the children from about ten years of age to eighteen, the 
country village is probably the most dangerous place morally 
that there is. The children in the cities have their playgrounds 
and their clubs, libraries, museums, stores, and other places 
where they may go and find instruction and pleasure. The 
children on the farm have their duties which keep them busy 
and teach them the trade of farming ; but the village boy and 
girl miss both of these sources of education — the varied life 
of the city, which makes it a constant exposition of the arts 
and ways of civilization, and the training of work which comes 
to the boy on the farm. There is no other place where there 
is quite so much idleness among the children as there is in 
the rural village, and idleness is always dangerous. It is in 
periods of idleness that children learn to smoke cigarettes, to 
shoot craps, to tell the smutty stories, to hear the smutty stories, 
to plan most of the things that their parents do not wish them 
to do. A boy may play baseball with eight other boys all of 
whom belong in the reform school, and so long as he plays 
he will not suffer much harm ; but let him loaf around with 
these boys for half an hour and there is no telling how much 
harm may be done. A girl may play basket ball with four 
loose girls and be a perfectly good, virtuous girl through it all ; 



THE BOY SCOUTS 153 

but let her sit down and gossip with these girls for a half hour, 
and a whole life may not be sufficient to undo the harm. 

The village is probably the best place that there is for the 
organization of the Boy Scouts, and it is also the place that 
needs them the most. The Boy Scouts is an outdoor order, 
that is teaching the arts and crafts and the virtues and the 
independence of the wilderness. It is difficult to do these 
things in the city. Very little of woodcraft or scoutcraft can 
be practiced there. The order cannot well be organized in 
the country on account of the amount of work and the lack 
of leadership, but all the conditions seem to be favorable to 
the organization in the village. The surrounding country is 
available for hikes. There are usually woods and lakes in the 
neighborhood for scouting and camping. There is an abun- 
dance of time, and there is usually in the village some young 
lawyer or doctor or clergyman who is not overburdened with 
duties and can take charge of the troop. I believe the Boy 
Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls are the solution of the child 
problem in the village for the older boys and girls, and with 
this organization the village will become the most attractive 
place in the world for everybody to live. Mr. James R. West, 
200 Fifth Ave., New York City, is the Chief Scout Executive. 



CHAPTER XI 

RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE 

It is commonly supposed that the play movement is solely 
for the children in the crowded sections of the great cities, 
yet to the student of recreation it is perfectly certain that the 
greatest need is not that of the children of the city slum, but 
rather of the women on the farms. The cases are very differ- 
ent in outward appearance, but not so much so in reality, for 
in both it is demand for life and time to do, for the joy of 
the doing, what the spirit craves, rather than under the spur 
of necessity to do the thing they must. 

Working too Many Hours 

The problem of the farm woman is threefold. She is work- 
ing far too long hours, her work is monotonous and im- 
interesting, and she has almost no recreation or vacations. 
The need of the factory worker, and others who are toiling in 
the industrial treadmill of the present, is great, but the need 
of the farm wife is greater. The work of the factory may be 
uninteresting and monotonous, but it is not for more than 
ten hours a day or six days a week ; the work of the farm 
kitchen is uninteresting, and it is never finished. The farmer 
is often working much too hard for his own good, for it is 
quite impossible to pursue the modern methods of agriculture 
and work twelve hours a day in a field or elsewhere ; but 
the farmer's work is largely limited by the daylight and the 
endurance of his team. As his wife's work is in the house 
and she furnishes the horse power herself it has no such 

154 



RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE 155 

limitations. I believe my own mother worked fourteen or 
fifteen hours a day on week days and probably seven hours a 
day on Sunday all her life. She did not work harder than the 
neighboring women and not nearly so hard as some of them, 
as she never cared for the garden, fed the pigs, or milked 
the cows. I believe that the farm women of the entire coun- 
try, or of the North at least, are working more than seventy 
hours a week. The law forbids the cniployniciit of women 
for more than tifty-four hours a week in Massachusetts and 
a number of other states ; but a woman may work in her own 
home as long as she or her husband pleases. 

Conditions breed Discontent 

Farm women have not largely realized how hard they were 
working until very lately ; yet one hears constant expressions 
of weariness from them, and if we may judge from the songs 
that are sung and the inscriptions that we find on country 
tombstones, the one idea of heaven that prevails is that it 
is a place of rest. What shall we say of a time and a condi- 
tion which develop an idea of heaven which has no positive 
content, but merely the ideal of the absence of toil 1 There 
is surely something wrong in this life somewhere. It is hard 
to say how much the desire of the farmer's wife to escape 
from the drudgery of the farm is responsible for the alarming 
growth of absentee landlordism all over the country at present, 
but it is doubtless a considerable element in it. The boys and 
girls are leaving the farm. It must be that somewhere they 
have got the idea that it is not the best place ia the world 
to live. This is often laid to a city-planned school system, but 
we cannot suppose that if the home breathed the spirit of 
satisfaction with conditions, the occasional influence of any 
city-bred teacher or curriculum could counteract it. Those of 
us who have had much experience with the rural school do 



156 PLAY AND RECREATION 

not dream that it is thus effective in other things, at least in 
molding the lives of the children. It doubtless has some in- 
fluence, but even what influence it has is largely due to the 
fact that it finds a mind that is susceptible to such a sugges- 
tion. Where country women have been questioned, it has 
generally been found that they did not wish their daughters 
to be farmers' wives. The farm girls themselves in their ab- 
stract choice do not wish to marry farmers, and the reason 
that is given is the endless drudgery of the farm home. 

This is a problem to which the schools of domestic economy, 
the agricultural colleges, the high schools, and the farmers 
themselves should devote their best efforts. It is fundamental 
to the welfare of the home aiid the whole farming community, 
because the home has to fill the place of general society and 
overcome the isolation of the farm. The children cannot be 
properly taught and cared for if the farm wife is spending 
twelve or fourteen hours a day on her housework. It would 
be futile for any one to hope to solve this problem offhand, 
but the following facts seem to be reasonably plain. They 
demand immediate attention. 

Need of Laeor-Saving Devices 

Since the women are working far too long hours, every 
sort of labor-saving device should be acquired until their hours 
of labor are brought down to a reasonable total. It is notori- 
ous that this has not been done thus far. Every new year 
has brought new machinery and labor-saving devices to the 
farm., but there has been almost no change in the home. 
This is not from unkindness or selfishness on the part of the 
farmer, as a rule, but because he has not realized the situation. 
If the farmer can afford to have a mowing machine for him- 
self, he can generally afford to have a windmill or a motor to 
pump the water for his wife. 



RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE 157 

The first great need is that the house should be planned 
not for show but to economize women's steps. The national 
Department of Agriculture and some of the agricultural 
colleges have designs for such homes that can be secured 
without cost. 

If the farmer can afford to take his milk to the creamery, 
he can afford to take the family wash and perhaps the baking 
along and have it done at the same time. The editor of 
Farm and Fireside was speaking in a western farmers' insti- 
tute and urging that the community arrange to have its wash- 
ing done in this way, saying that it would not cost more than 
ten cents more to have the family wash done with a steam 
washing machine and mangle. A well-to-do farmer spoke up 
and said, "But what would my wife do if she didn't save 
that ten cents .'' " When asked how many children he had he 
said " Nine." We will hope that this farmer was an exception. 
It is always wasteful to do with human muscles what can be 
done by machines. Any farmer ought to be ashamed to have 
a wife whose time is not worth more than ten or twenty cents 
a day to her family. 

The milk is coming to be pretty generally cared for by the 
farmer, as it should be. If he has not provided a windmill, 
he should also draw the water. 

Greater Efficiency in Work 

Perhaps the greatest trouble in this whole situation is that 
women have never learned the value of time. Their work 
has no money value put upon it ; as a rule they have nothing 
to look forward to if their work is quickly done, and conse- 
quently the girls often dawdle along over it, taking two or 
three times as long as they should. The country girls who 
have worked for us have always done so. W'hen one notices 
the celerity and industrial efficiency of the girls who are doing 



158 PLAY AND RECREATION 

piece work in the factory, and compares it with the Kstless 
movements of the girls working about the house, he is ahnost 
tempted to beheve that he is behokhng a different species or 
type of humankind. Yet these same farm girls make the 
very most effective factory workers when they go there. The 
trouble is that they have not been taught to be efficient and 
economize motions. The efficiency movement which would 
eliminate unnecessary steps and processes and do each task 
with a minimum of effort probably has a wider application in 
housework than it has anywhere else. 

If the farm wife is given a convenient house, with running 
water, and her laundry and baking are done out, and she will 
study efficiency and celerity in doing her work, she can easily 
reduce her hours of labor to five or six, which is quite as much 
as any woman with children should be expected to give to 
her house. Eight hours a day is the legal working day on 
government contracts and in many states. If a woman works 
seven hours a day for seven days a week, she will still be 
working forty-nine hours a week. It is generally estimated 
that the child learns more in the first six years of his life 
than he does in all the years that come afterwards. The 
mother is almost the only teacher during this period, and to 
sacrifice her leisure is to sacrifice the future of the child. 

Work Uninteresting 

The second difficulty with the work of the farm mother is 
the nature of the work itself. The farmer's work is out 
of doors, where he gets the fresh air, hears the songs of the 
birds, and sees the distant landscape and the ever-changing 
panorama of the seasons. His eyes are often closed to the 
beauty and the wonder of it all, but in some way it affects 
him unconsciously ; he cannot entirely shut it out. The 
woman's work is indoors. With her long hours she might 



RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE 159 

almost as well be in the city, so far as any contact with birds 
or sunsets or an outdoor life is concerned. 

The farmer's work changes from day to day. Each season 
has its special crops and harvests, its special forms of tillage, 
and its own problems. There is not the same change in 
woman's work. The beds have to be made, the floors swept, 
the meals cooked, and the dishes wiped every day of the year, 
summer or winter. 

The farmer realizes the prospective profits as he tills the 
soil. He can measure his work by direct returns. He realizes 
that the work of to-day will not need to be done to-morrow, 
and that each day brings him nearer the end of the season 
and the reward of his labor. The woman does not have 
these sources of satisfaction. Her work is like that of a man 
who would make a pile of stones on one side of the road 
to-day and then carry them across and pile them up on the 
other side the. next day, and so on ad iufinitum. The work 
she does to-day she will do again to-morrow, and so on to the 
end of the chapter. There is no direct reward for her work. 
It is unproductive. It largely disappears down the throats of 
the family and seems to yield no returns. 

The processes of agriculture have almost entirely changed 
in the last three or four decades until the farmer must be a 
high-grade mechanic, business man, and scientist to perform 
his work successfully. All of these processes are interesting 
in themselves. It is doubtful if washing dishes can ever be 
interesting in the same way. If the work is uninteresting, 
the hours must be made proportionately short, for the life of 
the spirit, the only life that is worth living, must come out- 
side the work. 

There are, however, parts of women's work that may be 
made much more interesting than they are at present. Cook- 
ing, canning, and preserving are interesting in themselves. 



i6o PLAY AND RECREATION 

have some changes with the seasons, and may be made much 
more interesting by the apphcation of scientific principles to 
them. The girls' cooking and canning clubs, which have re- 
cently been organized in a number of states, will, I believe, do 
an immense amount to make woman's work more attractive. 

Interest in Children 

However, the fact remains that the most interesting thing 
about the home must always be the children and the family 
life. The service that has been required in the past cannot 
be compensated without abundant appreciation. It seems 
almost an axiom that the training that the farm girls most 
need is a training in the care and love of children. It is in 
playing with the children that she gets nearly all her recrea- 
tion, for, merely as play, it is much better sport to dress a 
real live baby than it is to care for a doll. It is the children 
who give a motive to the work she does and who occupy her 
thoughts while she is busy with brainless tasks. It is their 
future that is to compensate for the monotony and drudgery 
of her daily life. 

The Family Life 

The farm woman is more dependent socially on the family 
than any other woman. She is almost completely isolated 
from outside society. She has no vacations, as a rule, and 
travels very little if any. It is in the family that she must 
find her real life. Even the farmer's contact with the world 
is wide beside hers. For the sake of the children and the 
wife alike the evenings should not be counted the unpro- 
ductive period and eliminated as nearly as possible by early 
retiring and early rising and evening duties, which prevent 
the wife from being a companion. The farmer should not 
forget to bring home his bit of news, whatever it may be, and 
share it with the others. The farm woman should endeavor 



RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE i6l 

to plan her work so that she can spend her evenings as far 
as possible with her family, and she should have something to 
bring to them. If she can play or sing, this will add much to 
the pleasure of the evenings. She should know how to play 
several games, both for her sake and the sake of the family. 
She should be able to tell stories or to read aloud at times. 
From some source her mind must be replenished, so that 
she will have something to talk about that is worth while. 
The farm home has been the moral strength of the farm and 
the country. If the farm wife is not overworked, she should 
be able to make the farm home yet more attractive by develop- 
ing a more intimate and interesting life about the fireside at 
night. The wife must inevitably be the real entertainer in 
this home social center ; she must plan and provide for the 
things to be done. If this is well done, there will not be many 
cases of boys and girls going wrong or wanting to leave the 
farm as soon as possible. It seems a sad reflection on our 
civilization that we should have thought of washing the dishes 
as woman's work but should have regarded this ministration 
to the spirit of the home and the family, which is surely the 
wife's most vital function, as a mere extra, which she was 
under no obligation, either social or moral, to perform. This 
is so obviously putting the lesser before the greater, the body 
above the spirit, industry above life, that it perhaps gives some 
point to foreign criticisms of our materialistic view of human 
values. It is a sad criticism on our education that we are 
teaching the girls all about cube root and compound propor- 
tion and nothing about the care of children and making the 
home attractive. The young people are not staying at home 
in the evenings either in the country or in the city. Why .-' 
Because there is nothing going on in the homes, and because 
the girls are not taught as they should be how to make the 
home attractive or to develop its social life. 



1 62 PLAY AND RECREATION 



Reading 



If the farm wife is to make an attractive home, if she is to 
be able to talve part in the conversation and to organize the 
social life of the family, she must have access to a woman's 
magazine and books. She cannot read aloud or tell stories 
to the family unless she has something to read from. Some 
arrangement 'should be made so that books will be readily 
available in the country, either through the school or through 
the traveling library. They have an excellent arrangement 
in Missouri and I know not how many other states, that fits 
well into rural conditions. The state librarian purchases the 
books. The books are sent out in strong boxes holding fifty. 
Any seven people can on application receive a box of these 
books and keep it for three or six months. This makes pos- 
sible the placing of a usable library of sorted books in every 
neighborhood. All that the local group need to pay is the 
freight, which is a mere trifie. It is really a much cheaper 
and more effective way of providing books to the people than 
the city library, as it saves the cost of the building and the 
librarian. It puts into the community a small selection of 
really suitable books and avoids the confusion and helpless- 
ness that an inexperienced reader is apt to feel in the pres- 
ence of the vast cases of card indexes of a city library. Why 
should not every state have this or a similar system ? Novels, 
and books of travel, biography, and history, are needed for 
recreation ; books on farming, domestic economy, and hygiene, 
for daily instruction and use ; and a few good books of poetry 
for inspiration. 

The Social Center 

The farm woman is isolated, more so than her husband, 
who is overmuch by himself. It is essential to her welfare 
that at least one day or evening of the week she should meet 



RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE 163 

for social purposes with tlie other people of the community. 
Otherwise she will not have enough to talk about in the 
evenings or enough to think about at her work. I see no 
possibility of satisfying her social needs in most cases with- 
out the social center, unless she goes each week to a social 
meeting at the grange or the church, and it is to be feared 
that even here the social opportunities are more limited than 
they should be. The social-center movement has often been 
thought of as a city movement, but it is surely more needed 
in the country than it is in the city. 

Need of a Vacation 

A very large part of the recreation of the farm woman 
must come, as we have indicated, from the home life and the 
social center, but this should not be all. She needs a vaca- 
tion, with a complete change of scene and thoughts, for two 
or three weeks every year. This probably is not possible, 
however, in most cases, and she must get her vacation as she 
goes along. It should be of such a character that it will give 
her something pleasant to think about while she is washing 
the dishes and making the beds. If these times that require 
little thought in themselves may be periods when thought is 
being incubated and policies determined, they need not be 
lost to spiritual growth on account of their lack of mental 

content. 

Should play Gainies 

The farm woman should play certain games in the yard. 
It would cause astonishment, I suppose, in many quarters to 
see the farmer and his wife out playing tennis after supper 
in the fall and the spring of the year, but I know of few 
things that would mean more for the common welfare. 



1 64 PLAY AND RECREATION 

Should drive and walk 

But in general recreation for the farm woman will be pretty 
dependent upon her ability to get about. Every girl ought to 
learn to harness a horse, to ride horseback, and to drive, in 
order that she may be independent and go where and when 
she wishes. This means, of course, that a horse should be 
put at her disposal when she cares to go. At least one after- 
noon a week a horse should be understood to belong to her. 
This should be possible in most families at nearly all times of 
the year, but in order that the privilege or opportunity of going 
may be assured, she should be able to walk as well. During 
the fall I usually walk from- three to ten miles through the 
country two or three afternoons each week, but I seldom 
meet a woman walking along the roads. 

Should belong to a Social Club 

Every farm woman should belong to some club or social 
organization that would give her frequent opportunities to 
meet with her friends. It would be a good thing if this could 
be a club to which both town and country women belong. 
The experience of the country women is too uniform for it 
to be really stimulating. In the city any group is made up of 
representatives from many different trades and professions. 
But in the country gatherings, as a rule, agriculture alone is 
represented. 

An Alumn/e Association of a District School 

There is among the women in the farming community in 
which I was brought up a club that is worthy of being copied, 
because it is successful ; and it seems likely that it would be 
successful elsewhere. It is the Fordham School Alumnas 
Association. 



RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE 165 

In an American community those who attended the same 
school as children are soon scattered into adjoining towns 
and counties, and some of them into distant states. The 
majority of them probably live within an area where it is 
possible for them to get together by train or carriage, but far 
enough apart so that they do not see each other often. There 
are no other memories that are quite so fondly remembered 
in adult life as the memories of childhood. This club appeals 
to real interests that are much more vital than those of the 
sewing circle. This club is known as the Fordham Club, from 
the Fordham School, which the members attended, for the 
most part about forty years ago, though some of the younger 
generation have been admitted also. They are now scattered 
over the north and west of the country, though a majority of 
them are living within a radius of twenty miles. Not more than 
three or four are still residents of the school district. The 
meetings are held at the houses of the members and some- 
times require a trip by train of twenty or thirty miles. There 
are monthly sessions, which convene about eleven and adjourn 
at four. The numbers in attendance vary from ten to forty. 
The hostess serves dinner. 

At the meetings the talk drifts largely to old times and 
reminiscences. The one event which is always scheduled is 
the reading of letters from absentees. The following will 
serve as a good example of letters of this kind and also of 
the talk. Such letters not infrequently come from Washing- 
ton, California, and other states of the far West. 

I wonder how many of you girls remember the " sparking bench," 
as we used to call the back seat ; and how the older ones would pair off 
in couples and throw a shawl over their heads that they might be more 
retired. And how we would go to the woods after leeks ; and the teacher 
would be " so mad " — obliged to work among us and get the full 
benefit of the perfume. And do you remember how you, Nell, Cora, 
Carrie and myself, and occasionally some of the others, would go at noon 



1 66 PLAY AND RECREATION 

to some one of the many pleasant orchards, spread out our dinners and 
have a picnic ? and how we all loved to get something that Cora's 
mother had made — her cooking was always so good ? 

And then another treat was to go over to the old mill and eat some 
of old Mr. Mattison's sorghum molasses or apple jelly. One time I went 
to the Mattison home to an afternoon warm sugar social, soon after Gene 
and Deal were married ; and she cried so because Gene played " snap- 
and-catch-'em " ^nd kissed the girls. And what happy times we spent on 
the ice in the winter time ! 

There are many happy remembrances, too, of the Sunday School, 
and of Messrs. Parsons and Loba and dear old Mrs. Nettleton. One 
time she brought a double-buggy load of you girls to our house to spend 
the day. Mother got up a big dinner for us and we spent the afternoon 
under those great oak trees in the woods that were there in front of our 
place. We made a Christmas tree of a growing thorn bush. I cannot 
remember who was there, but doubtless some of you will recall the 
circumstance. 

Well, I must not take up too much time and will hasten on. Most 
all of those dear old mothers have left us now, girls ; and we are grow- 
ing old ourselves. Some of us are far away; some lives have run in 
pleasant, happy grooves, for the most part ; and some of us have known 
bitter sorrow and unutterable suffering ; some have crossed the great 
divide and are waiting on the other side, where I hope we shall all be 
together again some day, an unbroken band of Fordhamites. 

I am glad you are having these meetings ; and wishing you many 
happy returns of the day, I am glad to be one of you, though not present. 

The proceedings of the club are written up in full in the 
local paper, from which this letter is taken. The editor says 
that a number of people have written from away and sub- 
scribed for the paper, because they wanted to get an account 
of the affairs of the club. 

Once a year the families of the members are invited, and 
at some time during the summer the annual picnic and 
homecoming of all the old members of the school district 
is held. This past summer the meeting was in the grove 
of a lake near here. There were one hundred twenty-five in 



RECREATION FOR THE FARM WIFE 167 

attendance, and every one voted that it was a most enjoy- 
able occasion. The advantages of this school district are in no 
way peculiar. The members are as much scattered as is usually 
the case. The club is carried on without any special promo- 
tion or dues. The railroad connections are not good, as there 
is only one railroad that touches the township, and this has 
only a few local trains that stop. There is no interurban 
trolley line within twelve miles. Some of the women drive 
ten to twenty miles to attend. None of the members are rich 
or even well-to-do in the liberal sense of the word. It would 
seem that a club that can succeed under such circumstances 
could succeed almost anywhere. About all that is needed is 
for some one to take the initiative in its organization. If there 
was ever a strong friendship between the girls of the old 
school, the club will probably be self-perpetuating. 

Meaning of the Country-Life Movement 

The Country-Life Movement, which is upon us, means 
essentially that life is more than profits and may not be sac- 
rificed to an endless routine, which gives no time to live, or 
to a sordid ambition, which in an utter devotion to money- 
making forgets that money has value only in so far as it 
secures for us a large and satisfying life. But a wealth that 
has to be hoarded and watched and tended, so that there is 
no time or thought for the pleasures or aspirations of life, 
means ever a poverty of spirit. The farmer must be given 
position and influence in society and in the affairs of the 
nation. The country must be made attractive enough so that 
it can keep the boys and girls on the farm, so that the more 
capable and efficient rather than the less capable and efficient 
farmers will remain. If this movement for a larger life is 
to prevail, it must come largely through the development of 
the social life in the open countiy, and of the social life of 



1 68 PLAY AND RECREATION 

the home. In this work the farm woman is the natural leader, 
and the times demand that she shall be emancipated so far 
as possible from the drudgery of the kitchen and the washtub, 
in order that she may give herself to her children, her fam- 
ily, and the community ; and they demand no less that the 
daughter that is coming on to take her place shall have in- 
struction in the things that are vital to her welfare and the 
welfare of the community — in the care of the home and the 
organization of its social life, in the love of nature, and in 
the love and care of children. 



CHAPTER XII 

RECREATION FOR THE FARMER 

The country is the most attractive place in the world to 
live. The American farmer has been given the greatest 
opportunity that has ever come to any great class in all the 
ages to lead a satisfying life. But most of this great oppor- 
tunity is being wasted, because he does not appreciate the 
forces by which he is surrounded or enjoy the work that is 
given him to do. Placed in the garden " to keep and to tend 
it," as were our first parents, he refuses to see the wonder 
and beauty of it all, although it is no less a Garden of Eden 
than it was then. To him no less than of old the God of 
nature speaks in a thousand ways ; yet his ears are stopped 
and he does not hear the voices. A warder in the great 
gallery of nature, where the eternal Artist hangs each day 
a new masterpiece, he scarce looks up to see what the pic- 
ture may be. Placed in a great divine world, where eternal 
forces are working perennial miracles, he often sees only a 
little world of crops and prices, and looks out upon it without 
reverence or wonder. The results are apparent. Forty-three 
per cent of our American farms are now owned by absentee 
landlords. The boys and girls are leaving for the city. The 
country is not attractive to the people of the farm. 

Absentee Farmers 

This condition is serious for all concerned. The man who 
works for long at a task which he does not enjoy degenerates 
in it. Dissatisfaction and discontent make the spirit mean, 

169 



I/O 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



The farmer who does not understand and appreciate the 
forces and laws by which he is surrounded does not grow at 
his work. His development stops as soon as it begins. His 
work is a parasite upon his spirit as long as he continues it. 
The farmers who are going to town are largely middle-aged 
men, with their best days before them. In general it would 
be better for the community if they committed suicide at this 




A BAIT-CASTIXC! CONTEST 



time. Rented farms do not yield, in most sections of the 
country, a revenue of more than three or four per cent on 
their value. The proceeds of a ten-thousand-dollar farm are 
not sufficient to support a family in a town or city, or even 
half support them, according to American standards. These 
retired farmers have to economize ; they are not familiar 
with city problems and are often a very serious menace to 
the general good, because they object to all improvements 
that require the expenditure of money. They are also a very 



RECREATION FOR THE FARMER 17 1 

serious menace to the welfare of the country community from 
which they have come ; as they no longer live there, they 
are unwilling to support the rural school ; they want a cheap 
building and a cheap teacher ; they no longer support the 
country church ; and they are not interested in good roads. 
The farmer has nothing to do in the town, and he is discon- 
tented and unhappy there. His life is shortened by the lack 
of legitimate interests, and his productive capacity is lost to 
the community. The tenant takes the farm for a short term. 
He wishes to get as much out of it as possible in that time. 
In general he is less intelligent than the owner, and he is 
not interested in the permanent fertility of the land or value 
of the property. He lets the fences and buildings run down. 
He does not care to support good schools or roads or churches, 
because he is a floater. Perhaps the greatest loss is that in 
this way the community loses the leadership in rural affairs 
which these retired farmers might exercise if they still lived 
on their farms. Such leadership is the greatest need of the 
countryside. 

Farmers who move to town are apt to do so for the sake 
of their children. Yet the country village is probably the 
worst place in the world for them. They do not get the edu- 
cation that comes from farm work ; they do not get the 
education that comes from the varied activities of a great city, 
which make it a perpetual exposition of all that the world 
is doing. Most of the vices of children are the vices of idle- 
ness, and there is no other place where children are quite so 
idle, and where their occupations are so purposeless, as they 
are in the rural village. 

The exodus of the young men and women from the farm 
is no less serious for the farming community, because it is 
mostly the able and capable ones who are going, leaving the 
less capable ones behind. The progressive selection of the 



172 PLAY AND RECREATION 

less capable for the farm can only mean the decay of farm life 
and the loss of position and influence by the farmer. The 
young people who go to the city are probably as a whole not 
as well off there. Their inexperience makes them easy vic- 
tims of sharpers, and their social isolation is apt to lead to 
the sowing of many wild oats. The country boy and girl in 
town are one of the most serious problems of the city. 

Surely one of the gravest questions for the agricultural 
colleges and rural economists to answer is how to stay this 
cityward tide. As the migration from the farm has seemed 
to increase with prosperity, and it is the most prosperous 
ones that have gone, we cannot think that the chief reasons 
for it can be industrial, but that in some way the life of the 
country has not been attractive. There seem to me two large 
reasons for this : first, the lack of social and recreational 
opportunities in the country ; and, second, the failure of the 
farmer to enjoy the work of the farm itself. The farmer has 
not found in his work in any sense its own reward, but has 
sought for returns wholly in terms of profits. 

Must enjoy Life as he goes along 

Why does not the farmer enjoy his work ? The first reason 
which must be reasonably evident to every one is that he is 
working too long hours. Any work becomes drudgery when 
it leads to weariness and denies any free time for enjoyment 
of leisure. Such work makes slaves of men and can no more 
be rewarded by a financial return than can slavery or prostitu- 
tion itself. " What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world and lose his own life } " The only advantage that a 
man gets out of wealth who spends all his time acquiring it 
is the sense of possession, the dignity that he feels and that 
others accord to him because of what he has gained. Wealth, 
so acquired, is nearly always a curse to the children and often 



RECREATION FOR THE FARMER 



173 



to the community as well. Life must be enjoyed as we go 
along. If for a long term of years we devote all our energies 
to making money, we soon lose the capacity for any other 
form of enjoyment. The farmer or other worker who has 
spent his prime thus is apt to come to a realization in the 
end that it is not worth while, that his life is going by with- 
out being lived, and he thinks the solution of the situation 
is to retire and enjoy himself. No one can play all the time 




GAMES AT A 1JUXST]':U ,sTKI-:KT RAILROAD PARK, JIL ilK, MoMA.NA 



and find it play. In time it palls upon the appetite. This 
comes sooner or later to all, but it comes very soon to one 
like the farmer, who has never learned how to play. How 
much better it would have been if he had taken his enjoy- 
ment as he went along, and developed his capacity for the use 
of leisure as he approached old age. In this way he might 
have enjoyed his work from day to day instead of finding it 
drudgery, have developed in mental stature, have kept his 
children on the farm, and, in the long run, have been much 



174 PLAY AND RECREATION 

more successful financially ; for it is quite impossible for a man 
to be a twentieth-century farmer or to use modern methods in 
agriculture and work twelve or fourteen hours a day. More 
and more the farmer must be a manager, a business man, 
a scientist, and a mechanic. Because of his interest in the 
result the farmer may not himself notice the strain of the long 
hours, but his son and daughter and the hired man surely will. 
Not only does the farmer need shorter hours each day, but he 
needs a half holiday each week. The education of the farm 
comes largely from the opportunity which it gives to think 
out problems, but this means that the farmer must have some- 
thing to think about. It is almost absolutely necessary that 
he should replenish his mind at frequent intervals with facts 
and experiences to work over. 

Love of Nature 

The love of nature is one of the most fundamental ele- 
ments in the enjoyment of country life ; the reverence for it 
will give dignity and worth of character as few other things 
can. Yet farmers as a class are indifferent to sunsets and 
autumn leaves and the hundred changes of the seasons, 
which give the country its eternal charm. He who sees in a 
field of waving grain only so many bushels of wheat is losing 
the best part of his harvest. He will do his milking quite as 
well if, as he goes with his pail, he still perceives the beauty 
of the flowers, the freshness of the grass, the songs of the 
birds, and the changing colors of the dawn. 

Love of Animals 

I know a gentleman of eighty-two, in comfortable circum- 
stances, who still lives on the farm, despite the protests of 
his children, because of his fondness for the pigs and chickens 
and cows and horses by which he is surrounded. He is wont 



RECREATION FOR THE FARMER I75 

to talk to them as he goes about among them, and gets much 
of his society in this way. So do all farmers. The farmer 
who finds no company in his team or his cows will soon leave 
the farm from utter loneliness. The company of animals 
must largely supply the missing human society. There is no 
difficulty in making the children fond of animals. All that 
is needed is to give them some to care for during their early 
years, and nature will do the rest. We always come to love 
that which is dependent upon us, especially if it is our own. 
The farmer ought to give his son a pig or lamb or calf occa- 
sionally, because he thus gains a sense of the value of prop- 
erty and acquires a new dignity in his own eyes as a property 
holder ; he learns much about the animal by caring for it, and, 
best of all, he comes to love it, which is an important moral 
training in itself and helps to make farm life more pleasant 
and less lonesome. 

The Farmer as a Scientist 

The farmer needs to understand his world and appreciate 
its laws. He cannot go on doing things by -rule of thumb 
because his father did that way and have any large enjoyment 
of his work ; but if he sees the principles that lie behind 
the rotation of crops, fertilization, and breeding, every crop 
becomes a scientific experiment, as interesting as those of 
the laboratory. With a knowledge of plants and insects he 
no longer need look to a blind fate or the changes of the 
moon for results, but becomes a molder of the forces with 
which he works. Our rural schools, again, have done almost 
nothing in the past to give to the farm children the knowl- 
edge which they need in order that they may be intelligent 
workers on the farm. But a better day is coming, with agri- 
culture in our rural elementary schools and rural high schools, 
with our boys' corn clubs and our girls' canning clubs, with 



176 PLAY AND RECREATION 

the winter courses in the agricultural colleges, farmers' insti- 
tutes, and the like. This work should be greatly extended. 
Trade schools have become very nearly universal abroad, and 
we have a good beginning in Massachusetts and some other 
eastern states. Many of the trades that are being trained for 
are already overcrowded, and there is scant time to give the 
training. On the other hand, all the farm boys and girls have 
plenty of time during the winter for a short course in agri- 
culture. Such winter courses should be started in every town- 
ship as fast as the teachers can be trained to take charge. 
Very likely some of the more progressive farmers of mature 
years would also be led to attend these schools. This work 
is more necessary in agriculture than in any other trade or pro- 
fession, in as much as practice is probably farther behind our 
knowledge in agriculture than it is in any other subject. It 
is a series of such schools and cooperation that have produced 
the unparalleled prosperity of Denmark despite every kind 
of adverse condition. A sandy peninsula nearly surrounded 
by the frigid waters of two oceans, where they have to blan- 
ket the cows in August to protect them from the cold wind, 
it has prospered as no other agricultural country has done. 
It is hard to conjecture what the American farm might yield, 
with our improved machinery, rich soil, and mild climate, 
under similar methods of agriculture. I believe the annual 
products of the state of Michigan might be increased a hun- 
dred millions in value by the introduction of such a system 

of schools. 

The Farmer as a Mechanic 

During the last three or four decades the work of the 
farm has been almost entirely transformed. Thirty years ago 
the farmer held the handles of his plow in a single furrow. 
He harrowed the furrows with a drag which he followed. He 
planted the corn with a hoe or a hand planter, cultivated it 



RECREATION FOR THE FARMER 177 

with a walking cultivator, and cut it up and husked it by hand. 
To-day the land is largely plowed with a gang plow, or at any 
rate by a riding plow, and harrowed with a riding harrow ; 
the corn is planted by a machine planter, cut up, if cut up 
at all, by a corn reaper, and husked by a machine busker. 
The person who does not understand machinery or enjoy the 
operation of machines will be increasingly unsuited for the 
life of a farmer. The ingenious person always enjoys machin- 
ery and the taking it apart and putting it together. The per- 
son without mechanical training or ability always finds it a bore. 
It always goes wrong, gets out of order just at the critical 
moment, and, in general, exhibits a total depravity which is 
as nearly complete as anything we know. All children like 
to watch machineiy and take it to pieces. It does not take 
much encouragement to make almost any child ingenious with 
tools. As the farmer is becoming increasingly a mechanic, 
so his enjoyment of farm life is going to depend increasingly 
on his mechanical skill and the pleasure which he has in 
operating machines. The school must give him the training. 

The Fa;\iily Life 

The family life is more intimate on the farm than else- 
where, since all of the menpibers are working together in a 
common cause. Each understands the work which is being 
done, and each cooperates with the others to secure results. 
This is not true of most other trades and professions. The 
work of the lawyer and business man is almost absolutely 
apart from his family. The factory employee may not even 
bring his children in to see what he is doing. The result 
is that the family has few points of contact and sympathy. 
There are also many diversions that separate them at night. 
In the country the family work together and generally spend 
their evenings together. If the members manage to cooperate 



1/8 PLAY AND RECREATION 

and to spend the evenings pleasantly, this will do very much 
to make the farm home and farm life attractive. The city 
home has been very nearly destroyed by the hundred influ- 
ences that arc separating" the family, but this is not yet true 
in the country. If the farmer will only appreciate that it is 
quite as much his work to raise a worthy family of children 
as it is to raise good pigs or corn, and will think of these 
evenings as no less important a part of the day than the day- 
light hours, then we may expect that the country will be the 
best place in the world to raise children at any rate, and that 
the city migration will ultimately be stayed. The farm home 
is the greatest asset of our American democracy. It has pro- 
duced many of our greatest men and given stability to our 
national character. 

Thi-: CHnj)REN 

After all, it is the enjoyment of children and their play and 
their fresh points of view that gives most of the recreation to 
adults everywhere. It is hard to tell how much of the joy and 
hopefulness of life we should lose if our lives were not con- 
stantly refreshed by the gladness and hopefulness of children. 
Perhaps there is no other one thing that would do so much 
for the home, the parents, and the children as to develop an 
appreciation of the fact that playing with their children is one 
of the most sacred duties that are laid upon parents ; that a 
crop of children is not less important than a crop of corn ; 
and that they are worthy of quite as much care. No parent 
can ever be so good a counselor or understand his child so 
well if he does not play with him. 

The Aged 
The aged come again into the position of children in the 
community. After the working days are over, there is plenty 
of time to play. If retirement comes while they are still 



RECREATION FOR THE FARMER 179 

vigorous, it is then that many get the time to travel and do the 
things that they had wished to do but had not had time for 
before. It is the time when one drops his occupation and takes 
up his avocation. When this time comes to the farmer, he 
usually buys a little cottage in the neighboring village and 
moves to town. The natural recreation of old people comes 
largely from watching the progress of their children and play- 
ing with their grandchildren, from gossip and sociability 
and the deference of the community to a successful and useful 
life. There ought to be a pioneer's club in every community, 
where these old people could get together occasionally and 
tell yarns as the soldiers do at their reunions. Besides this 
they need plenty to read, of an entertaining nature, a horse 
to drive, a few chickens or a pig, and pleasant neighbors. 



CHAPTER XIII 

COUNTRY PLAYGROUNDS 

Vacations are valuable to give variety to life, to throw off 
worry, to relieve the strain of overwork, and to bring in 
new points of view. Although the farmer and his wife need 
a vacation as much as any other single class, it is difficult for 
them to get one on account of the stock and duties that never 
cease. Nearly all pleasure resorts are located outside the 
cities, where the charm of natural scenery and the touch with 
natural things are the chief attraction, llirough countless 
ages the ancestors of man have lived in an environment of 
nature. It has been for only a brief period of human history 
that he has inhabited cities. He goes back to nature, the 
woods, the waters, and the mountains as to his original home 
and there finds peace. The voice of the ocean, of the winds, 
of the rushing river, of the bird in the tree tops, speak cheer 
and calm to the spirit, where the whir of wheels, the rumble 
of cars, the infinite noises of the city, are a constant source of 
irritation and nervous exhaustion. Although the farmer is 
placed where the city man would go for rest and recreation, 
the country is far from being a pleasure resort to him. 

It does not seem likely that the farmer will ever make a 
practice of going away on vacations. The form of vacation 
that is really the most available is camping, but he has not 
thus far camped much, though the Boy Scouts, the Camp 
Fire Girls, the County Y.M.C.A., and the County Y.W.C.A. 
are doing much to make camping more popular than it has 
ever been before. 

i8o 



COUNTRY PLAYGROUNDS i8l 

^ The Lakeside Resort 

The pleasure resort that is best suited to the farmer is 
the one where he can go to picnic or to spend a day or two 
when he has the time. Lakeside resorts are now becoming 
common throughout the northern section of this country. At 
some of these there are whole colonies of summer people 
from the farms and country villages. As these resorts develop 
in the more thickly settled sections they acquire hotels, sum- 
mer theaters, bath houses, and the ubicjuitous pop-corn and 
lemonade counter. There are boats for rowing and fishing, 
a picnic grove (generally provided with tables), a water tobog- 
gan slide, and ofttimes a place for baseball and sometimes 
croquet. An increasing number of people are coming out 
from the small towns and villages to spend their summers, 
or a part of them, at these resorts. On Saturday afternoons 
and Sundays large numbers often congregate, and there are 
farmers' picnics and other festive occasions which bring out 
nearly every one. These lakeside places have grown up in 
response to a popular demand and are filling a real need, but 
it would not be difficult to point out their many limitations. 
The fishing has become unsatisfactory in most, the mos- 
quitoes are often a pest, the facilities for games and play are 
inadequate, and the temptations are many. Country people 
are independent ; they are unwilling to be regulated and do 
not believe much in regulation. Such resorts cannot be 
trusted to run themselves. They offer the opportunity for 
unrestricted drinking or dancing under the worst conditions, 
and for general immorality, as they are apt to attract dissolute 
women from the cities during the summer. If there were 
some one at these resorts to start water sports and tourna- 
ments in baseball, volley ball, and tennis, and if the county 
might issue licenses, making definite requirements in regard 
to hotels, dances, and drinking, it would be a great help. 



1 82 PLAY AND RECREATION 

The Picnic Grove, or Township Park ^ 

The picnic is almost the only form of community recrea- 
tion in most sections of the country. The grove is nearly 
always private property and is usually without improvements 
except tables. It should be a public institution and its resources 
developed. In order for it to reach the people there should 
be one in eath township, and often it should be around the 
consolidated rural school. However, the rural school will 
probably not have water or trees, and if the picnic grove is 
to be there, it will often have to do without water and wait 
for the trees to grow. It would be more practical, in general, 
to purchase a picnic grove, or township park, outright, lay out 
athletic fields, and equip it as it should be. This grove might 
well be used for the summer meetings of the Chautauqua, 
the grange, and the social center. If the country people 
would develop the custom of resorting there on Saturday 
afternoons during the warmer months, such a grove would 
be an admirable playground for the county. President Bailey 
says, " The half holiday is coming for the farmer and coming 
fast." With the half holiday and the social center in winter 
and the picnic grove in summer, and some capable person to 
organize the recreation and social life, the country should be 
able to hold its own against the attractions of the city. 

After the ground has been secured, it should be equipped 
permanently with all that could promote the recreation of a 
rural community. It should have a pavilion for shelter and 
speaking, there should be boating and swimming if there is 
water, and there should be fields for every sort of game and 
athletic event. Such facilities are expensive in the city on 
account of the cost of land, but are furnished nevertheless. 
The cost would be scarcely one per cent as much for the town- 
ship, and nearly every township could well afford it. It would 



COUNTRY PLAYGROUNDS 183 

be to the advantage of rural villages to provide such an equip- 
ment and so call in the people of the countryside, but thus 
far they have not done so. Perhaps they would if there were 
anything available and they saw that the voters were contem- 
plating purchasing land elsewhere. At this township park 
there should be swings, sand bins, and slides for the little 
children, courts for tennis, croquet, volley ball, basket ball, 
and indoor-baseball diamonds for the girls and older people. 
There should be quoits and a rifle range for the older men 
and indoor and regular baseball for the young men. Here 
should be held on Saturday afternoons the township tourna- 
ments in volley ball and indoor and regular baseball. Such 
a picnic grove, or township park, is the natural playground of 
the country. It is no less needed than is the playground in 
the most congested city, though it is needed for exactly the 
opposite reason. The playground is needed in the city on 
account of congestion. The playground is needed in the 
country on account of isolation. 

Directed Play in Small Villages 

It must not be taken for granted, however, that a play- 
ground of the city type is impossible in rural communities. 
I have recently spent a day in the small village of North 
Stonington, Connecticut. It is a place of some one hundred 
fifty inhabitants and has maintained for the last three years 
a playground with two regular playground directors. The 
children are coming in from two miles in the country to 
attend. This has been organized through the enterprise of the 
pastor of the Congregational church, the Reverend Frederick 
Hollister. The ground is located in an orchard just back of 
the parsonage. There are swings, sand bins, seesaws, and 
a place for quoits and croquet. A small building, erected for 
the purpose, gives an opportunity for sewing and cooking 



1 84 PLAY AND RECREATION 

lessons for the girls. Besides the regular directors the pastor 
and his wife give much of their time to the playground also. 
On Wednesdays the parents are invited to bring their sup- 
pers for a picnic in the orchard beside the playground. The 
average attendance at these evening occasions has been about 
forty ; the average attendance of children during the day, 
about thirty-five. 

. The playground is supported by a Japanese tea garden 
which the ladies hold in the early summer. This calls in 




JAPANESE TEA GARDEN AT NORTH STONINGTON, CONNECTICUT 

many motorists and is in itself a valuable social occasion for 
the neighborhood, as it brings the city and society to the 
country. 

Far Hills, New Jersey, which is also a very small village, 
has had a community playground for a decade or more, and 
there are a vast number of small villages where a similar 
work might well be undertaken. Probably the ideal place for 
the location of a playground is not in a great city but in a 
place of from three to five thousand inhabitants. 



COUNTRY PLAYGROUNDS 



185 



The County Fair 

The exhibition is one of the best methods of imparting 
knowledge. The World's Fair in Chicago was one of the 
greatest educational inspirations that has come to this coun- 
try. Every great fair is the chief event in the lives of many 
of those who travel little, and is talked about for the rest of 
their lives. The county fair appears like a pocket edition of 




PLAYGROUND AT NORTH STONINGTON, CONNECTICUT 



such a fair, but it is not so in fact, for it has no plan or 
serious purpose and is largely an expedient of the merchants 
to draw trade. 

It should be conducted by the farmers and in the inter- 
est of the farmers, not by the merchants in the interest of 
the merchants. It should hold in view some ideal of rural 
life, and aim to give exhibits along the road to and in the 
interest of progress. The apple institutes of the Northwest 



1 86 PLAY AND RECREATION 

are admirable examples of what such a fair might be. These 
apple fairs are expositions of all the latest methods and appli- 
ances of the trade, and an institute is held at the same time, 
at which many of the vital problems of the industry are dis- 
cussed. I see no reason why there should not be such an 
educational organization of every fair. The college of agri- 
culture and domestic science would gladly cooperate and fur- 
nish lecturers, and demonstrators for institute work, as they 
are already doing in a number of cases. Such a fair, which 
would conceive largely of its task, and aim to represent not 
merely pigs and sheep but country life and its fundamental 
problems, would be a great force for rural improvement, but 
the mere exhibition of the largest apple or pumpkin means 
nothing to anybody. President Butterfield of the Amherst Ag- 
ricultural College says also that we must develop a conscience 
in the farmers that will prompt them to have something to 
exhibit each year for the benefit of the others. 

The county fair as a fair is not much of a success, but it 
is a great social occasion to the countryside, one of the great- 
est of the year to the children. The fact that the people 
attend so largely shows how much a social center is needed. It 
is probably not as successful socially as a township meeting 
would be, because most of the people are strangers to you 
and the ones you want to see are so mixed up with the others 
that they are hard to find. The side shows and the candy are 
the chief attractions to the children, and the horse races to 
the men. One of the best things that might be done would 
be to exhibit with a good deal of fullness the work and play 
of the school children. These contests of school children 
would be apt to add much to the interest and the attendance. 
The Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. should hold exhibitions of 
their work. There should be drills and exhibitions by the 
Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE ORGANIZERS OF RURAL RECREATION 

From our study of recreation problems thus far, it appears 
that while the country has no great supply of the passive di- 
versions such as the theater, music, and art, or those nervous 
and mental dissipations, the roller coaster and the merry-go- 
round, yet for all forms of active recreation it has the best 
facilities there are. The country does not lack opportunity, 
but it lacks appreciation of the value of recreation and it lacks 
leadership in getting the movement under way. The undi- 
rected playground proved a failure in the city, and it is this 
same lack of direction that is the weakness of the situation 
in the country. In the pages that have gone before there 
has been an effort to show some of the means and agencies 
through which this organization might come. It is apparent 
that to make the country appeal to the young and be a 
really ideal place for the rearing of children, the adults must 
come to hold a juster estimate of life's values and see that pros- 
perity is not all of living. There must be restored to rural life, 
in yet larger measure than it once had, the romance and ad- 
venture and cooperation of pioneer days. To change the 
spirit of a people is no light task, but it is not an impossible 
one surely, when the change that is proposed is a return to 
an earlier spirit and to conditions that are demanded by 
human nature itself for the gratification of the most funda- 
mental of social wants that, unsatisfied, are now breeding 
discontent. To bring in this better day all the rural agencies 
that make for progress must cooperate. The rural school, 

187 



1 88 PLAY AND RECREATION 

the agricultural college, the church, and the grange must 
each do its part. So also there is a series of persons each 
of whom must take some share in the work. 

The Clergyman 

Under ideal conditions the rural clergyman may do all and 
be the best possible agency in organizing rural life and socia- 
bility, because the church offers with its social opportunity 
the message of idealism, love, and social service which the 
country needs. At present, however, the rural church is deca- 
dent, and there are almost no resident pastors. Its many 
creeds have forced the community apart rather than drawn it 
together. The organization of recreation and society for the 
whole community seems to be the salvation of the rural church. 
If it sees this in time, then the rural clergyman will become one 
of the most important factors in the whole situation. Wher- 
ever there is a rural church with a resident pastor and a social 
viewpoint, it can do much. The church is beginning to see 
this, and there are many pastors, especially in the villages, 
who are already serving as scout masters or as baseball 
managers. The ordinary donations and entertainments of the 
church are valuable social occasions in rural communities. 

The Teacher 

The students in the normal schools are now, in most cases, 
getting a certain amount of training that will fit them to 
organize social-center work, play festivals, pageants, picnics, 
camps, etc. In many normal schools they are also having 
preached to them the gospel of play and the rural-life move- 
ment and its requirements. Many of them are coming to 
see the need of making rural life less dull and hard. The 
rural teacher is being better paid ; her position in the com- 
munity is becoming more secure. With the general teaching 



THE ORGANIZERS OF RURAL RECREATION 189 

of agriculture, we must have more men. It is reasonable to 
suppose that the rural teacher is to take a much larger 
part in organizing rural recreation than she has in the past. 
There can be no question of the wisdom of her doing so, if 
she does not go too fast and if she selects forms that appeal 
to the community. It will make her known, and the com- 
munity will be grateful. She can often get up riding or walk- 
ing parties, camping expeditions for week-ends, community 
tournaments in tennis, volley ball, and baseball, or organize 
Boy Scout patrols and the Camp Fire Girls, or she can start 
a parents' association and have pleasant social occasions at the 
schoolhouse. Her limitations are her youth and inexperience 
and her insecurity of position and early marriage, which 
remove her from the work just as she begins to be efficient. 

The County Superintendent of Schools 

This official is not found in all counties, though he prob- 
ably soon will be, as he lies in the line of educational progress. 
He can determine the sort of play and athletics the schools 
are to have. He can get up pageants and play festivals, and 
he can promote social activities and lectures in the evening. 
The county superintendent is, however, himself much too 
busy to do all the work that needs to be done. He can as- 
sist in but not conduct rural recreation. He might be given 
several assistants who would each have charge of the recrea- 
tion in different townships, and who would rank as supervisors 
of the special branches, such as agriculture and drawing. This 
experiment was made in Tennessee last year with a recrea- 
tion director for Hamilton County. Some such organization 
of rural recreation is entirely feasible. Very many county 
superintendents are alive to the need, and not a few are 
begfinninsr to organize their counties. 



190 PLAY AND RECREATION 

The County Secretaries of the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. 

These are both new positions that have great promise in 
improving rural conditions for young people. Both of these 
secretaries have had some training along the lines of public 
recreation. They have the social spirit, and their work de- 
mands the social organization of rural groups. Nearly every- 
where both associations are already starting recreational 
activities of Various kinds. In many cases a play festival is 
held, and there are nearly always some athletics and some 
camping. However, the County Y.W.C.A. is only just 
making a beginning, and the Y.M.C.A. is reaching only 
sixty counties. The county is too large a territory for any 
person to oversee unless he has many assistants, and each of 
the secretaries has his or her own special work to do. 

The Agricultural Secretary 

The newest recruit in the field of rural recreation is the 
agricultural secretary. These are men from the agricultural 
colleges for the most part. They have the spirit of the new 
movement for rural progress. They are as a rule well paid 
and capable. I have no statistics as to how many counties 
have thus far been organized, but I found forty-two of these 
men this summer in North Dakota alone. Their number cer- 
tainly runs up into the hundreds and perhaps to nearly a 
thousand at the present time. If the work continues to be as 
promising as it has seemed to be thus far, every progressive 
county will soon have such an official. All business has 
tended toward larger and larger units of organization during 
the past century, but this has been true to a much more 
limited extent on the farm than elsewhere. The large busi- 
ness admits of skilled supervision of unskilled workmen. 
Such supervision the country industries have sadly lacked. 



THE ORGANIZERS OF RURAL RECREATION 191 

The agricultural secretaries can only suggest, but their sug- 
gestions are proving tremendously valuable in many quarters. 
The county has never had a real executive officer, and it 
would seem that more and more the agricultural secretary 
should become that officer. Under the socialistic state he 
would be the business manager of the county. He naturally 
has a political opportunity also that no other man in the 
county has, if he wishes to go into politics. 

In North Dakota I find that these men are organizing 
farmers' clubs throughout their counties, which are devoted 
in part to business and in part to sociability. In the summer 
they often meet on Saturday afternoons ; a picnic supper is 
provided, and games for the children. All through the year 
the children attend with their parents. The meetings are 
held in the farmhouses in winter and usually last for an 
afternoon and an evening. The children have a room for 
themselves. 

A Paid Organizer of Recreation needed 
IN THE Country 

Each of the agencies that have been mentioned is feeling 
the need of more recreation in the country ; each is already 
doing something and will do more, but all together cannot 
meet the actual need. The city has given up trying to organ- 
ize recreation through volunteer agencies. What is every- 
body's business is nobody's business. There will be great 
improvement over the present conditions from these agencies 
alone, but there will not be real efficiency in rural recreation 
until the country has its play director as the city has. At 
present the conduct of play is being generally accepted by 
the city as a municipal function. It belongs quite as much 
to the country as to the city, and the play director for the coun- 
try should also be a public official. To many this will seem 



192 PLAV Ax\D RECREATION 

like a break with all rural traditions, but it is not really so. 
In Germany they have had for a long time, in some of the 
provinces at least, a rural supervisor of play who is known 
as a Spiel-Inspector. He has to see that there are places for 
swimming" in summer and skating in winter. He organizes 
athletic contests and play festivals. He gives courses in play 
to the teachers. He institutes picnics and entertainments for 
adults, A bill was introduced into the legislature of the state 
of Illinois last year providing for somewhat similar organiza- 
tion of rural recreation in Illinois. 

The Recreation District 

If there is to be a play director for the country, how large 
should his playground be 1 There are three possible answers 
to this question if he is to be a public official : the district, 
the township, or the county. The district apparently is not 
large enough to support him. The district does not offer 
enough variety of social attainment or leadership to make 
society as stimulating as it should be. The county is too large 
to be known, that is, for the director to know the people 
or the play facilities. The township seems to be indicated 
as the proper territory for this organization. If the township 
has the consolidated school, with its township park and ath- 
letic fields in connection with it, the organizer of recreation 
will be mainly the director of this playground and of the social 
center. After school and on Saturdays and evenings he will 
need to be there. Perhaps through the social center he can 
organize nearly everything that needs to be done, though it 
would be well for him to get about the township as well. The 
logical person for the director of the township recreation is the 
principal of the consolidated school, if he should be capable of 
doing it. It should mean of course an increase of salary and 
release from much of the school work he is now carrying. 



THE ORGANIZERS OF RURAL RECREATION 193 

The Work of the Rural-Recreation Director 

The work that the recreation director will need to do has 
been outlined with some completeness in the pages that have 
gone before. He needs first of all to organize the various 
agencies in each neighborhood — at the social center if there 
is one, in the community if there is not — into a League for 
Rural Progress or a Civic League. This organization should 
have general charge of the movement and take the responsi- 
bility of it. It would fall to this play director to introduce 
games that are suitable to the country ; to get up athletic 
tournaments, pageants, and play festivals ; to organize the 
Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls ; to conduct institutes 
and lectures and Chautauquas ; to select suitable activities for 
the social center and appropriate facilities for the picnic grove. 
He might well be the most important official in the town- 
ship and probably would be so wherever there was a con- 
solidated school and social center. This would require, in 
the beginning at least, a very high-grade person at a good 
salary. 

An Opportunity for a Philanthropist 

Mrs. A. E. Kent has attempted in the Tamalpais center one 
solution of this problem of rural recreation — that of provid- 
ing the fine social center and rural playground as a thing by 
itself. However, the county work of the Y.M.C.A. and the 
Y.W.C.A. is being done without equipment. The country 
lacks not space but organization of its play and social life. 
The probable solution of the rural-recreation problem is not 
through the special center but through the consolidated school 
and the picnic grove or township park. The country com- 
munities are too conservative to employ or support, in the 
beginning, an official to do the work of a play director, but I 



194 ■ PLAY AND RECREATION 

question if there is anywhere a more attractive opportunity 
for private beneficence. What better service could a philan- 
thropist render to the country home of his childhood than to 
endow for it, for a term of years, such an official ? It would 
be an experiment in which the whole country would take keen 
interest, and if the right person were secured, it could not 
well fail to contribute powerfully to the solution of many vital 
problems of ^ the rural community. 



PART FOUR 

THE RURAL SOCIAL CENTER 



THE SOCIAL CENTER — THE HOPE OF 
DEMOCRACY AND THE CURE OF ISOLATION 

Democracy, the power, or rule, of the people, presupposes 
frequent meetings of the people to deliberate and decide what 
is to be done. This again presupposes a common meeting 
ground where these deliberations can take place. In national 
affairs we have delegated to Congress the making of our laws, 
but in local affairs the people themselves must be their own 
congress and must have their own meeting place if they are 
to be well governed. 

In the ancient democracies of Greece the people met 
together in the market place to determine the policy of the 
state and to elect from their friends and acquaintances the 
officers of the year. These democracies were cities that were 
scarcely more than villages from the modern standpoint. 
Only a small portion of the inhabitants were voters, so the 
mechanism was comparatively simple. In the case of the 
United States the country has become too vast and its inter- 
ests too complicated to have the policies of state decided in 
that way. We have a representative democracy. However, 
if we will observe our form of organization, we shall see that 
this great country is supposed to be built up of a series of 
democracies, each a little larger than the one of lower order. 
In the cities we have the wards and in the country the town- 
ship, the county, and the state, eacli of which is a little 
democracy within a larger democracy. In the wards of the 
cities and in the rural townships we have units that corre- 
spond in many ways to the original democracies of Greece, 

197 



198 PLAY AND RECREATION 

The Greeks, however, had their agora, or social center, where 
the people were accustomed to assemble and where it was 
possible to discuss all public affairs. The town hall served 
this purpose to a considerable extent in early New England, 
but there is no center at the present time for the city ward 
or the rural township. This is probably the reason that " ward 
politics" has been a synonym for all that is bad in politics, 
and that the township government has been so ineffective in 
securing results. We can never have sound politics until we 
organize and purify this basal unit of our democracy. It is 
this great aim that lies before the social-center movement — to 
give to the people some agora, forum, market place, or center 
where they can assemble for social converse and consider, 
discuss, and organize the public welfare. 

For the city the social center promises the restoration of 
the community and recreation for all. ]5ut it is far more 
necessary for the country, because to the country it must give 
political effectiveness, business cooperation, and social life. 
It is the natural cure for the political indifference, the indi- 
vidualism in business, and the social isolation of the farm. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE IDEALS AND METHODS OF ORGANIZING 
SOCIAL CENTERS 

There is great interest in the social-center movement all 
over the country just now, and a very rapid development is 
going on. In 1909 the University of Wisconsin employed 
Mr. Edward J. Ward of Rochester, N.Y., who had previously 
had charge of the social centers in that city, to organize social 
centers about the state of Wisconsin — a task to which he has 
since devoted himself. In October, 191 1, there was organ- 
ized at Madison the Social-Center Association of America, of 
which Josiah Strong was elected president and Professor 
Ward secretary. State laws have been passed in Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, and a number of other states requiring school 
boards to open schoolhouses for social purposes whenever 
the public so desires. In the last presidential campaign the 
three candidates each indorsed the idea of this wider use 
of school buildings, and in Chicago, Rochester, and several 
other cities the schools were used for campaign speeches and 
in some for polling places as well. One of the most able 
addresses that were given at the formation of the association 
was made by Governor Wilson, so it would look as though 
the movement should receive all due official encouragement 
during the years that are upon us. It has the indorsement 
of the National Education Association and all prominent 
educators everywhere. The spread of the idea has been so 
quiet, and the recent developments have been so little re- 
ported, that it is almost impossible at the present time to tell 

199 



200 PLAY AND RECREATION 

how general it has become, but forty-seven cities with two 
hundred eighteen centers are reported in the Playground 
for January, 191 3, and it is safe to say that a beginning has 
been made in nearly every city and county of the country. 
This beginning is often very feeble and inadequate, but it is a 
seed out of which may well grow a great movement. While 
perhaps it is possible to do the work best in connection with 
the church, wherever an adequate church which has the sup- 
port of the whole community can be found, there are few 
adequate churches with resident ministers in the country, and 
it is well-nigh impossible to have this development without 
this condition. 

Different Aims in Social-Center Development 

The term " social center " is used to describe three differ- 
ent types of activities, which are educational, social, and civic. 
The movement is developing along different lines in differ- 
ent localities. It lacks suitable equipment everywhere, and 
nowhere has a real community center yet appeared. In some 
places the activities are largely educational, with public lec- 
tures, classes in domestic economy, manual training, and 
gymnastics ; in others it is largely recreational, with singing, 
dramatics, games, and dancing ; while in yet others it is be- 
coming the civic forum for the meeting of various clubs and 
the discussion of public questions. New York took the lead 
in the beginning in developing the social center of the first 
two types. Rochester has been largely responsible for devel- 
oping the social center of the civic type. This was similar to 
what parents' associations and School Improvement Associa- 
tions had been doing in many places, but the movement took 
a new start with a new spirit of social equality at Rochester, 
and to Professor Forbes, the president of the school board, and 
to Professor Ward, the superintendent of the social centers. 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 



20I 



is due great credit for the developments both at Rochester 
and elsewliere. The Rochester type of social center comes 
the nearest to creating a real community center of all the so- 
cial centers thus far attempted, and it has also within itself the 
machinery that is necessary to reform politics and improve 
the community, which the other forms of social centers have 




EVENING RECREATION CENTER IN NEW YORK CITY 

not. Under the New York ideals the social centers are carried 
on by the Board of Education ; under the Rochester ideal the 
social center becomes an expression of the people themselves. 



Methods of Organization through the Board 
OF Education 

As the social center is in most cases using the public 
schools and is often a real extension of the work of the 
schools to the community, it might seem that this is a work 
that belongs naturally to the school board, and it certainly 



202 PLAY AND RECREATION 

should have their cooperation if the school board finds itself 
in the position to give it. The educational phases of the 
social center — the classes, the lectures, the school exhibi- 
tions, and the library work — should naturally be under the 
school authorities, and it is well for them to take the initiative 
in these matters whenever possible. But so far as possible 
the social and civic interests of the center should be demo- 
cratic and managed by the people themselves. School boards 
often will not have the authority to initiate this work unless 
a special ordinance is passed conferring this right upon them, 
and they will seldom have the necessary money in the begin- 
ning. Hence, however properly this work might belong to 
the school board, in very many cases at least the first steps 
will have to be taken by private individuals who are interested. 

The Social-Center Association 

It is highly important that the people should feel from 
the beginning that the social center belongs to them, as this 
will make it more popular and secure in its financial support. 
It is better to have the work initiated by the people of the 
community than to have it started by the school board or any 
less general agency. It is not at all difficult to begin the move- 
ment in this way. A public meeting should be called, and 
some one should be invited to give a talk on the social-center 
idea ; after that there should be discussion, and a social-center 
association or civic league should be formed, with a temporary 
constitution and officers, to hold over until a later meeting, 
when permanent officers can be elected and a permanent 
constitution adopted. It is best, as a rule, to have some small 
dues at first. It is through organizations such as this that most 
of the great social progress of the last two decades has been 
effected. In union, organization, there is strength. Twenty- 
five people who are in earnest and will work together can 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 203 

carry almost any movement against the indifference of twenty- 
five tlioLisancl. If there are half a dozen people who are in- 
terested enough to call such a meeting, and a few more who 
are interested enough to attend, this is an effective and admi- 
rable way to make a beginning. It is wise to have the discus- 
sion somewhat arranged for beforehand, to have a provisional 
constitution ready, and to have looked over the field carefully 
for the provisional officers, who are likely to be the permanent 
officers. The writer recently organized such a social-center 
movement in a Michigan town of some seven hundred inhabi- 
tants. A public meeting was called with a popular lecture, 
and a civic league was formed with about forty members, 
who signed the slips that evening. The league maintains a 
class for civic discussions, which meets at noon on Sundays, 
a Sunday evening lecture course with civic lectures from the 
State University, the Agricultural College, the various state 
departments, and several local sources. It has a social eve- 
ning once in two weeks. It has been organized only about 
three months, but it has already secured dental and medical 
inspection for the school children, a better set of films for the 
moving-picture show, a closer cooperation between the grange 
and the town and an organization of the Camp Fire Girls, 
and has started a movement for domestic economy and agri- 
culture in the local high school. 

However, the country is noted for its conservatism and lack 
of initiative in social affairs, and if all communities had to 
wait for the movement to start up in their midst, there are 
some that would have to wait a long time. 

The Recreation Association 

In the cities a large part of the social centers are operated 
by the various playground associations. The most expensive 
social-center buildinars that have ever been constructed are 



204 PLAY AND RECREATION 

the field houses in the Chicago playgrounds. The centers at 
Rochester were a part of the movement for general recrea- 
tion and under the Superintendent of Playgrounds and Social 
Centers. In New York also the evening recreation cen- 
ters are under the same superintendent as the school play- 
grounds. In most cities the social-center work is the winter 
work of the playgrounds. This enables them to hire their 
directors by ,the year and to maintain a continuous policy. 
However, there are no playground associations in the coun- 
try, and it looks as though the social center would have to 
start the organized play, instead of the recreation movement 
organizing the social centers. 

A Parents' Association 

Wherever there is already a parents' association or a home- 
and-school league in the neighborhood, this offers one of the 
best means of getting started, as the league may take up the 
social-center work as one of its regular activities. They may 
be able to get the school board to make an appropriation for 
the sake of starting the movement, and they should always 
attempt to do this, even though it seems certain that the 
recjuest will not be granted, as it helps to familiarize the board 
with the idea. If they are not able to secure an appropria- 
tion, it is best to raise a small amount by private subscription, 
and start the movement in a small way. Most people have 
great reluctance in asking others to contribute money to 
public purposes, but it is not nearly so difficult to raise 
money as most people imagine. About all that is needed 
is the expectation of receiving what you ask for. There is 
a new spirit of giving in this country at the present time, 
and there are many people who are genuinely glad to give 
to a worthy cause. 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 205 

A School Improvement Association 

In nine of the Southern states the Southern Education 
Board is paying an organizer of school improvement associa- 
tions. This work was begun in Maine some thirty years ago 
and was later taken up by the state of North Carolina. Pro- 
fessor Claxton, now Commissioner of Education, became in- 
terested in it, and through him it became one of the policies 
of the Southern Board to put such an organizer into the office 
of each Southern state superintendent of schools. This organ- 
izer goes about the state, usually with a stereopticon, and meets 
groups of parents who are called together by the county 
superintendents. She shows pictures of what other schools 
are doing, and suggests that they form a school improve- 
ment association which will meet at the school and work for 
the welfare of the school and neighborhood. These associa- 
tions have been very effective in improving conditions at the 
schools and incidentally have organized the neighborhood to 
work for a public purpose. In Mississippi they usually meet 
once a month on Saturdays. The people bring a picnic lunch 
and spend the day or at least a half day. The work of the 
children is exhibited, and the deficiencies in the school equip- 
ment become evident. In the afternoon athletic contests are 
a feature. The Southern Board has done many good things 
that might well be copied by the North, and such an organ- 
izer might well be an assistant to every state superintendent 
in the country and paid from public funds. Superintendent 
Cook of Arkansas says that for every dollar that has gone 
into the salary of this person in his state there has come back 
to the state four hundred dollars in improved buildings and 
grounds alone. It is impossible to tell how much has come 
back in the way of a quickened social life and civic spirit. 
Investments that yield forty thousand per cent profit are worth 



206 PLAY AND RECREATION 

trying. I believe thisorganizerof school improvements is an ex- 
cellent agency for the initiation of this movement when outside 
assistance is necessary. Of course the social center will come 
in time without any systematic promotion from anybody, for 
the consciousness of the need is already upon us ; but it ought 
not to be necessary to wait for this idea to percolate down to 
each isolated board of education throughout the country, and 
those who take up new movements without expert assistance 
are apt to do the work badly and wastefully in the beginning. 
The social center is essential to the welfare of country life, 
and it redounds to the welfare of the school directly in bring- 
ing the parents and the teachers together. As the social 
centers are organized in most cases in connection with the 
public schools, and are, in part at least, an extension of public- 
school work, their promotion belongs naturally to the State 
Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

The State University 

It was stated at the organization of the Social-Center Asso- 
ciation of America that six state universities had already em- 
ployed social-center organizers. There is great interest in this 
subject in a number of states, and the rather general extension 
of this idea seems likely. .State universities are coming to con- 
ceive of their function in terms of service such as was scarcely 
dreamed of a decade ago. The University of Wisconsin has 
led in this new conception of the university as the home of a 
body of specialists who would each endeavor not merely to 
serve the student body but to carry their message to the whole 
state. It has been rewarded by a phenomenal growth in num- 
bers, in the loyalty of the citizens, and in large appropriations. 
It is a noble conception of the purpose and aim of the uni- 
versity, and is one case where it has not been merely the 
home of " abandoned ideals." There are advantages in such 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 207 

organizing of this work, because these men can give courses 
at the university at the same time. Still there can be little 
doubt that the university is here usurping the function of the 
Superintendent of Public Instruction. Practically, however, 
it may be quite possible for the university to get the money 
for such an expert, and it may not be at all possible for the 
State Superintendent to secure such an assistant; and the 
important thing is to have the work done. 

The Agricultural College 

In about half of the states the agricultural college is one of 
the professional schools of the state university. Where the 
schools are separate it may be that the starting of the rural 
social center falls more naturally to the lot of the agi"icultural 
college than to the university. Certainly the teaching of agri- 
culture and domestic economy, and institutes for farmers and 
farm women, are likely to be among its largest functions. 
Nearly all the rural-life conferences that have been held in 
connection with the agricultural colleges have declared for 
the development of the social center in connection with the 
rural schools. Wherever the agricultural college has on its 
staff an instructor in rural sociology who can give some of 
his time to this work, it is certainly as appropriate for the 
agricultural college as for the state university to do it. The 
agricultural secretaries who have recently been appointed in 
so many counties are doing much in the forming of farmers' 
clubs with both a social and a business side. 

A Normal School 

There are some cases where the students and professors 
have gone out from the normal schools to organize social 
centers in rural schools in the territory immediately adjacent 
to them. This is a piece of school missionary work such as 



208 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



we should naturally expect from the normal schools, and we 
may hope for a great extension along this line in the future. 
A number of normals are planning work of this character for 
the coming year. 

It is evident from what has been said thus far that there 
is no lack of agencies through which social centers may be 
organized. If all of these agencies will work together, they 




A COUNTY PLAY FESTIVAL AT THE NORMAL SCHOOL, 
VALLEY CITY, NORTH DAKOTA 

ought to be able to accomplish much in a short time. From 
whatever source the social center is organized, it should be 
mainly self-directed after it is once started. 

Who should manage the Social Center 

The classes, lectures, and the library will in general have 
to be paid for by the educational authorities and should be 
managed by them. The social and civic activities should be 
an expression of the life of the people and managed by them 
so far as possible. 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 209 

There will have to be some person in general charge of 
the center, and this person should if possible be the principal 
of the consolidated school, if the school is the social center, 
or, better, the director of recreation for the township, if such 
a position can be created. This serves again to emphasize 
the point of view of Commissioner Claxton, that the rural 
teacher should be a fixture in the rural community, and that 
he should be furnished a house with a small farm in the im- 
mediate neighborhood of the school, in the same way that a 
preacher is furnished a parsonage. No social center will run 
itself, and there must be one or more persons who are always 
there and who are responsible for the discipline, the readiness 
of everything that is to be used, and the general program. If 
the principal does this work, he will have to be paid for it, 
as will also the teachers of classes, the lecturers, and the jani- 
tor. The social center will also increase the heating bill and 
the lighting bill, and naturally a primary question in regard to 
the social center is. How are these expenses to be met .? 

Financing the Social Center 

Like all new movements the social center usually has to 
be begun by private initiative. This nearly always means 
three things : that the simplest and least expensive activities 
must be chosen ; that the workers must contribute their time 
or serve for very small compensation ; and that there must be 
some means of raising money. There are four ways of financ- 
ing the social center : by membership dues in the social- 
center association ; by entertainments ; by the contributions 
of public-spirited people ; by public appropriations. Prob- 
ably all of these means should be used at times. It is a good 
thing to have a small membership fee in the social-center asso- 
ciation in any case, so that it may not be entirely dependent 
on public funds. It is more blessed to give than to receive, 



2IO PLAY AND RECREATION 

and giving increases the interest. There are now about fifty 
cities where the social centers are supported in whole or in 
part from public appropriations. For the most part, I believe 
the rural centers have been operated without any funds. The 
school authorities have contributed the building, and the per- 
formers have contributed the talent. However, the sort of 
social center which will really meet the need of a rural com- 
munity cannot be so maintained ; it must have a regular ap- 
propriation from the school board or from some other public 
source, or a considerable budget must be raised from private 
subscriptions. As a public enterprise the social center which 
becomes the real community center of a township has unusual 
advantages. Its constituency are the voters of the township, 
and they can have anything they are willing to pay for unless 
the law forbids. 

How Much Territory should the Rural Social 
Center Cover ? 

So far as the social center is carried on under the school 
authorities, there are two possibilities ; either the school dis- 
trict or the township may be taken as the unit. But it is quite 
impossible for the single school district in most places to sup- 
port the variety of activities that are needed at a social center. 
It cannot maintain a library that is worth while, public lec- 
tures, a gymnasium, classes in domestic science and agriculture, 
the moving picture, and many other things that are needed to 
make the social center really attractive. The social center can 
be maintained at the one-room school, but its activities will 
naturally be very much restricted, by the lack of both equip- 
ment and numbers. It would appear that the consolidated 
school is still more necessary to the adults than it is to the chil- 
dren, and that the social needs of the community are the very 
strongest reasons that we have at present for consolidation, 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 



21 I 



though the other reasons, arising from effectiveness in school 
work and economy of school administration, are entirely suf- 
ficient. Consolidation is already the accepted educational 
policy, and we may expect that the rapid development in this 
direction now going on in the most progressive states will 
soon reach the whole country. A village graded or high 





A COUNTRY NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE 

school will serve, but the consolidated school for the town- 
ship, with a township park and athletic ground around it, is 
the ideal social center for a rural community. 



The Social-Center Building 

The consolidated school should have both an auditorium 
and a gymnasium or hall ; but if it can have only one, it should 
always take the gymnasium, because the gymnasium can be 
seated as an auditorium whenever it is desired, and it can be 
used for dances, banquets, voting, and public meetings as well. 
It might well be the regular meeting place of the grange, the 
woman's club, or any other similar organizations. It would 



212 PLAY AND RECREATION 

be well if there could be a small room for the care of the 
babies at the time of entertainments and one or more social 
rooms or parlors for small neighborhood meetings, gossip, 
etc. As this room might serve as the teachers' room as well, 
it would mean no considerable extra expense. As the g}'m- 
nasium might also be the town hall, the polling place, and 
the grange hall, it would be a positive economy for a coun- 
try neighborhood. Certainly the number of changes that are 
needed to adapt the ordinary consolidated school for a social 
center are not many or serious. The states of Washington, 
Minnesota, and North Dakota have recently passed laws giv- 
ing special state aid to consolidated schools, but their number 
as compared with the one-room schools is still insignificant. 

Tamalpais Center, Calibx^rnia 

Tamalpais Center, a few miles out of San Francisco, was 
built by Mrs. A. E. Kent, the mother of Congressman Kent 
of California, as a contribution to the recreation problem for 
the country and country village. The ground given consists 
of twenty-nine acres of level land at the foot of Mount 
Tamalpais. It is a beautiful location, and there is a fine club 
building and a competent director. There is a playground for 
the children, with a lady director, several baseball diamonds 
and football fields, and space for athletic events. A speed- 
ing track for horse races surrounds the grounds. The field 
house is used for dances, social gatherings, literary and debat- 
ing clubs, and public lectures. The popularity of this center 
increases continually, and it is expected that the community 
will soon assume the expense of its maintenance. 

A number of other centers have been constructed in 
the country on a somewhat less ambitious scale than the 
center at Tamalpais. It is another phase of the Chicago 
question whether we shall use the schools for social centers 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 213 

or construct special centers in the parks. On the whole, the 
argument seems to rest with the schools, as the school center 
requires maintenance alone and has a far larger attendance. 
As the social center is one of the chief reasons for the con- 
solidated school in most sections, it would be rather a pity 
to divide the argument by building a separate social center, 
though it is fine to have such an experiment to observe and 
study, for history sometimes confounds our fondest theories. 
All gratitude is due to Mrs. Kent for the demonstration. It 
is not necessary that the social-center activities should always 
be carried on in the same building. If there is a social center 
or civic organization that can stand behind the movement, the 
meetings may be held in such places as are available — now 
in a village high school, now in a church, again in the grange 
hall or the opera house or a private home. There are certain 
kinds of activities that cannot of course be carried on through 
such a migratory center, but there are a large number that 
can, and if the movement were begun in this way, it would 
soon develop better facilities. 

The One-Room School 

Wherever it is necessary to carry on the social center at a 
one-room school, it will be an advantage if movable desks 
can be provided, so that the room can be seated for adults as 
well as for children, or cleared altogether for entertainments. 
If a new building is to be erected, it would be well for those 
who have the matter in charge to investigate the model 
country school which has been built by President Kirk of the 
State Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri, for the practice 
work of his rural teachers. This has been described in many 
articles, and President Kirk can furnish a detailed account of 
it on application. One of the features of this school building 
that fits it especially to be a social center is that the seats 



214 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



are not fastened to the floor but are on little platforms, so 
that they can be moved to one side and the room can be 
seated with folding chairs for adults or the floor cleared for 
dancing or games. A stereopticon fits into its own cabinet in 
the back of the room. A gasoline engine in the basement 
pumps water for the toilets and shower baths and generates 
the electricity to light the school building and the lantern. 




MOlJlCl. KL'KAl. SCHOOL, KIKK.SVU.LE, AUSSOLKl 

The engine is operated by one of the older boys. In the attic 
of the school is a large cooking range, which is used for lessons 
in domestic science by the older girls, and which might be used 
equally well for afternoon teas by the woman's club. 

A Private House 

In rural communities there are certain very decided ad- 
vantages in an itinerant social center at the homes of the 
members. The house will usually have several usable rooms. 



ORGANIZING SOCIAL CENTERS 215 

so that the children, the young people, and the adults can 
each meet by themselves if it is desirable for them to meet 
separately. The home suggests visiting and social life, and 
where the numbers are small they will doubtless be much 
more comfortable in the homes than they will be in the 
one-room schoolhouse. This will tend to create a habit 
of visiting and friendliness at other times. Refreshments 
and music are also great promoters of sociability and ac- 
quaintance, and the home will usually have the facilities for 
these. The farmers' clubs in North Dakota, which are es- 
sentially itinerant social centers, are meeting thus in the 
homes. They have regular literary programs, debates, lec- 
tures, and a good time. Of course this is feasible only when 
the communities are small and scattered and the people are 
fairly well acquainted and friendly. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE RURAL CHURCH AS A SOCIAL CENTER 

There have been a number of recent articles and books 
that seem tO inchcatc the behef that the rural church is to 
be the social center of the rural community. As this view is 
held by many of the clergymen themselves, it indicates a 
point of view that is hopeful. The rural cliurch might be the 
very best social center that the country could have,' for it 
offers not merely a social opportunity, but an appreciation of 
spiritual values and a sense of social service. It is to the 
advantage of the church to become such a center, for the 
rural surveys seem to show that in general only those churches 
that are organizing the social life of their communities are 
growing. It is a proper work for the church, for the hired man 
and the farm boys are falling into dissipation from the lack 
of legitimate amusements. The farmers and their sons and 
daughters are leaving for the town and the city, there to be 
subject to many temptations for which they are not prepared, 
and to clog the wheels of city progress by their conservatism. 

Duty of the Church to organize Society and Recreation 

Jesus said, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
In the epistles we are told in various places that the test of 
Christianity is the spirit of brotherly love. If it be the pur- 
pose of Christianity to promote human brotherhood, or, in 
more common terms, real friendship among men, then it is 
no less the duty of the church to promote sociability and 
friendliness than it is to hold church services. It is impossible 

216 



THE RURAL CHURCH AS A SOCIAL CENTER 21/ 

for men to love each other unless they know each other — 
unless they meet together in frequent social intercourse. If 
Christianity is applied love, the duty of the church is the de- 
velopment of love. This is the task of religious education — 
of the church and of the individual Christian. But the 
numerous churches have often split the community in pieces 
rather than cemented it together. 

Time for Doctrinal Sermons is Past 

The time for the doctrinal sermon is past. Any live min- 
ister ought to- have something to say to his people as a father 
would to his children ; but neither Jesus himself nor any of 
his contemporaries ever looked upon his mission as essentially 
that of preaching. He was called the Great Physician, the 
friend of publicans and sinners. It was said of him that he 
went about doing good. The minister ought to be the social 
organizer and spiritual counselor of his flock. It should be 
his aim to bring to pass the kingdom of heaven upon earth, 
or, in other words, to promote the spirit of love and the deeds 
that spring from love. 

Decadent Condition of Country Churches 

It is needless to say that the country church has not con- 
ceived of its duty in this way. There is no question, also, but 
that the church in the country is at present in a decadent 
condition. The Reverend E. C. Hay ward in his book on 
" Institutional Work for the Country Church " says : 

Conditions have greatly changed in the last few years. But few coun- 
try churches can be said to be in a flourishing condition ; the majority 
are barely holding their own, some are losing ground, all are struggling 
heroically for life ; but the tide is against them, something must be done. 

In the studies that were made under the Department of the 
Church and Country Life of the Board of Home Missions of 



2i8 PLAY AND RECREATION 

the Presbyterian Church in the United States it was found 
that sixteen hundred rural churches in Illinois, seven hundred 
fifty in Missouri, six hundred in Tennessee, etc. had been 
abandoned in the last ten years. It is estimated that there 
are ten thousand abandoned rural churches in the countiy 
as a whole. There are probably thirty or forty thousand more 
that should be abandoned in order that rural parishes may 
be consolidated as we are now consolidating rural schools. 
But this is not what has taken place with these churches ; 
they have been simply given up from lack of support. 

Organizing Recreation and Sociability builds 
LTp THE Church 

This can only mean that the rural church is not rendering, 
on the whole, a vital service to rural life. The church survey 
also discovered other interesting facts. In one county of In- 
diana seventy-six churches were found. Of those among this 
number that were organizing the social and recreational life 
of their people, sixty-five per cent were found to be growing 
in membership. Of those that were not organizing the social 
and recreational life only twelve per cent were found to be 
growing. In other counties, out of two hundred fifty-six 
churches that were not organizing any form of recreation only 
one was found to be growing. It is evidently good policy for 
the church to take this work seriously. 

We have several shining examples of what such a church 
can do. The Reverend Matthew McNutt of Plainfield, Illinois, 
is one of the best-known examples. He came from the 
McCormick Theological Seminary to a dying country church 
twelve years ago. He first organized a singing school, which 
brought the young people into the church one night a week 
to sing. It soon developed that there were several good 
voices, and out of this singing grew a boys' quartet, a girls' 



THE RURAL CHURCH AS A SOCIAL CENTER 219 

quartet, several soloists, and a good chorus for the church. 
After this a gospel chorus was organized that met around at 
the houses of the members. A considerable part of these 
evenings were given to sociability and became very popular 
among the young people. This built up at once the church 
attendance and the choir. A series of sociables were planned 
and held at the different houses of the neighborhood. No 




A TO.MATO-VIXE-PRU\IXG CONTEST 



charge was made, but light refreshments were served free. 
These developed a spirit of good-comradeship among the 
young people. There was a missionary circle for the girls, 
which was largely social, and an athletic club among the boys. 
An annual home-coming and picnic was arranged for, and a 
series of extension lectures and entertainments were given in 
the winter. 

Since Mr, McNutt came to this pastorate twelve years ago 
the church has erected a new ten-thousand-dollar edifice, which 



220 PLAY AND RECREATION 

was paid for as soon as completed. The pastor's salary has 
been raised forty per cent, and more than six thousand dollars 
has been given in the last five years to outside benevolences. 
Practically every one in the countryside belongs to the church. 
This church is out in the open country, six miles from the 
nearest railroad or trolley line. It is not far from Chicago, 
Joliet, or Aurora, yet almost none of its young people have 
left the farn; to seek city life. During his entire pastorate 
there only one young person in the neighborhood is known 
to have gone wrong. 

The Reverend Mr. McNutt says : 

When a church once gets a reputation in a community of helping the 
helpless, for befriending the friendless, for showing mercy to the poor, 
for rendering a cheerful, loving, helpful service to all in need, there is no 
question about its becoming a church full of life — a church that will 
command the respect, the cooperation, the support of everybody. 

The great trouble with the church in the past has been that 
it has been ministering" to itself, seeking to run a " gospel 
ark " for its own members, without feeling that it owed any 
duty of service to the community as a whole. The reward 
of both men and institutions is in close proportion to the 
service they render. 

The Reverend Anton T. Boise, in reporting on his survey 
of rural conditions in northern Missouri, says : 

The strongest country church that I found was one where for more 
than twenty-five years it had been the custom of the young people to go 
off together every Sunday after church or Sunday School to some one 
place for dinner and a good time and also to meet together at some home 
once or twice a month, during the week. In that community I was told 
by two different men whose word I think I can trust that for twenty 
years there had not been a case of a girl going wrong, and that none of 
the young men or boys had ever been known to be drunk. 



THE RURAL CHURCH AS A SOCIAL CENTER 221 

The Organization needed is not Difficult 

The things that have been spoken of in the way of recrea- 
tion and sociabihty are not difficult to organize. The young 
people in the country are eager for such opportunities and 
only too glad to respond. Almost any girls' Bible class can 
be organized into a social club to meet on some evening or 
afternoon during the week. It is easy to turn a boys' class 
into a baseball team or a Boy Scout patrol. The task of 
social organization is in some ways much easier in the coun- 
try than in the city, because there is a lack of other attractions 
there. In the city any organization that may be formed will 
have to bid against the moving-picture show, the theater, the 
dance hall, the pool room, the cheap excursion, parks, play- 
grounds, etc. There is no lack of society in the city, but in 
the country there are none of these counter attractions, and 
there is a hunger for companionship. The entire problem of 
rural recreation might well be turned over to the church, if 
every country church had and could support a pastor like the 
Reverend Mr. McNutt. But this is far from being the case. 

Probably country churches need to be consolidated even 
more than rural schools. They have often created a most 
unchristian spirit in country neighborhoods, and have some- 
times been kept alive largely by the frictions and spirit of 
strife which they stirred up. They have divided the commu- 
nity up so much that it has been impossible to get an audience 
at any one church or to raise enough money to support the 
minister. The country community needs sadly a community 
center. The centralized church, such as the one at Plain- 
field, is probably the best center possible. 



222 . PLAY AND RECREATION 

The Country Church is without a Pastor 

The country church is at the present time without a pastor. 
In the study of the churches of northern Missouri it was 
found that ninty-two per cent of the country ministers had 
four or more churches, and that the remaining eight per cent 
had two or three churches. There was not a single minister 
who was giving ah his time to one country church. All but 
three of these ministers lived in the towns and not in the 
open country at all ; ninety-two per cent of the churches 
w'ere what are known as three-hour churches ; that is, they 
had two preaching services one Sunday a month. Such 
churches, of course, have no pastors. It is impossible for this 
absentee preacher to minister to the social needs of his flock. 
He is not a minister or a pastor, but only a preacher. This con- 
dition is as disastrous to the country spiritually as absentee- 
landlordism is industrially. 

Again, many of the country preachers are not highly edu- 
cated ; they have not the requisite social interest or training 
or breadth of view to organize its social life. 

All the signs seem to indicate that a better time is coming 
to the country church. Many of the leaders of thought are 
alive to the problem. The seminaries are beginning to give 
training. The rural-life conferences and summer courses for 
country ministers are giving direction to the movement. But 
it will be a generation, probably, before this condition can be 
remedied. 

Can the Church do the Work without a Pastor ? 

How far is it possible for the church to organize the social 
life of the community without a resident pastor ? It is purely 
a question of leadership. Social leadership is always inade- 
quate in the rural community, but if the country churches 



THE RURAL CHURCH AS A SOCLA.L CENTER 223 

would conceive of this as a duty tliat they owe to the com- 
munity, and to themselves as Christians, and to the church, 
they might do much, and the church would get an increasing 
support from the community that might enable it soon to 
maintain a pastor. 

Nearly all country churches are doing something at the 
present time. Even the ordinary preaching services are social 
occasions more or less. The Reverend Mr. Boise says : 

I was talking not long ago with a very intelligent seventeen-year- 
old boy, the son of a well-to-do farmer. I asked him what recreations 
there were for himself and his friends. He thought a minute and 
then answered, " Well, there is church on Sunday, and then there is 
Sunday school " — but he had trouble in thinking of anything else. 

Most churches have also oyster suppers and strawberry festi- 
vals in order to raise their share of the mmister's salary. 
These are held selfishly by the church for its own ends, but 
they serve as valuable social occasions for the countryside 
nevertheless. Some of these events were, I remember, among 
the largest events in my own childhood. 

Probably the largest, and often the only, social service the 
church is rendering is represented by the Woman's Mis- 
sionary Society, which frequently meets and sews for the sick 
or the poor of the neighborhood. Probably the service which 
the women render to themselves and to each other, by meeting 
together in a social way, is no less than their service to the 
sick or the poor, but they do not usually think of this side, 
and render their work unselfishly. It is to be feared that 
there is a good deal of gossip at these meetings, and that 
there is not as much intellectual stimulation as there should 
be. But however conducted, they are worth while, as they 
are often the only social gatherings of any kind the farm wife 
attends. If the rural church will only see the value of these 
things, it will be possible for almost any church congregation 



224 PLAY AND RECREATION 

to hold several good free sociables during the year, which 
will be a boon to the young people who want to get together, 
and will be sure to create a spirit of friendliness toward 
the church. 

Any capable teacher of a young men's Bible class can or- 
ganize his class into a baseball team or a Boy Scout patrol 
to meet at some time during the week, and this will be good 
for the boys and good for the Sunday school. A good deal 
of this is already being done, as Mr. West, Chief Scout 
executive, estimates that eighty-five per cent of all scout 
patrols are organized in connection with Sunday schools. At 
least twenty-five per cent of the scout masters are ministers. 

In the same way it would not be difficult for any capable 
teacher of a Sunday-school class of older girls to organize 
them into a missionary or other band that would meet 
once a week or once a month for discussions, sewing, and 
sociability. 

It is believed that a realization of the value and the need 
of social life is getting abroad in the country communities, 
and that we may expect more and more from the church in 
the way of the organization of recreation and sociability along 
all of these lines. The results will not, however, be satisfac- 
tory until the rural church can get a pastor, and a pastor who 
conceives that he owes a duty of service to the community 
as a whole. With such a pastor the country church will as- 
sume a new importance in the rural community, and nearly 
all will become members. His preaching will be a by-product 
of a life of service, but it will be better and more effective 
preaching. 



CHAPTER XVII 

EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION THROUGH THE RURAL 
SOCIAL CENTER 

If it has been decided to form a social center, the first 
thing to agree upon will naturally be the program of things 
to be undertaken. Whenever it is possible, the initiation of 
the work should follow a social survey that would discover 
the actual needs of the neighborhood and the material that 
is available for leadership, teaching, and lectures, also the 
facilities that are present for the various undertakings under 
consideration. It obviously would not be wise to start a class 
in cooking if there were no ranges, or a class in gymnastics 
without a gymnasium. People are apt to take it for granted 
that they know what these facilities are, but a little investi- 
gation usually reveals many resources that had not been 
thought of. 

School Exhibitions 

There are at least six distinctively educational uses of 
the social center, all of which are important both to the rural 
school and to the rural community. The first of these is that 
the social center serves or may serve to bring the school and 
the community together, to make the teachers and parents 
acquainted, and to show the parents just what progress their 
children are making in school. To this end some of the 
regular meetings of the social center should be school exhi- 
bitions or fairs in which the entire program for the evening is 
in the hands of the school, and it should exhibit all that it is 

225 



226 PLAY AND RECREATION 

doing, with some of the work of each pupil in each subject 
so far as possible. The exhibition in manual training, agri- 
culture, domestic science, and the work of the corn and 
canning clubs would be likely to be of especial interest to 
the parents, and the praise and criticism of the adults would 
be very stimulating to the children and would go a long way 
toward furnishing a natural and effective incentive to the 
children in their work. There should be some recitations 
and dialogues, and the evening might well close with light 
refreshments served by the class in domestic economy. The 
possibility of such an exhibition will, of course, be more or less 
dependent on the place of meeting and the school curriculum. 

Extension Classes in Agriculture and Domestic Science 

A second educational feature that is worth while is exten- 
sion courses in agriculture for the young men and extension 
courses in domestic economy for the young women. Our old 
idea of education was that a portion of life, from six to twenty 
perhaps, should be set aside for it, and that during this period 
we must crowd into the mind all that the person would ever 
need to know. We have discovered, however, that the child 
is not interested in many of the things that we have sought 
to teach him and that he soon forgets them. There is coming 
in to-day a new conception. Education is a process that begins 
with birth and ends with death. It is impossible in a large way 
to prepare in one period of life for what is to happen in 
another, because the child is not at that time interested in 
these things, and by concentrating his attention on preparation 
for the future we may cause him to miss the legitimate ex- 
periences of the period to which he at that time belongs. We 
are not very good prophets, and it is hard to predict what the 
future of the child may be or just what preparation he needs. 
The world is moving on so fast that it is impossible to prepare 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 227 

to-day for conditions ten or twenty years hence, and the man 
who ceases to study for five years becomes obsolete. As the 
result, nearly every university and normal school has its 
summer session. Summer Chautauquas are held in nearly 
every village of the Middle West. The Y.M.C.A. workers 
have their annual encampment, the ministers have their con- 
ferences, and there are state and other associations that are 
constantly reviewing the latest things for the teachers. 

Probably this extension training is more needed by the 
farmers and their wives than by any other class. Professor 
Carver of Harvard says : 

To be a thoroughly equipped, scientific farmer probably requires a 
higher education, certainly a more complete scientific education, than 
any of the learned professions, with the possible exception of medicine. 
Such a farmer must obviously know something of botany, zoology, chem- 
istry, physics, and surveying ; and some special and difficult branches of 
these sciences he must know extremely well. Principles of plant and 
animal breeding ought to be thoroughly understood, if it were possible. 

Despite the difficulty of his profession, most farmers have 
received no training in the principles involved, but have 
merely learned from their fathers or others to do things in 
a certain way. The farmer often does not believe in the 
training of the agricultural college, and speaks of the gradu- 
ates as " kid-glove farmers." In medicine it is recognized 
that the only way to proficiency is the medical school. The 
aspiring minister believes that he should attend the school of 
theology, and the would-be teacher that he should go to the 
normal school, but the farmer does not believe that farming 
can be taught. On the face of it this seems unreasonable, 
and it must be either that our agricultural colleges have been 
very inefficient or that the farmer has a mistaken idea of their 
value. It is the opinion of the writer that the agricultural col- 
leges have made good, and that the farmers have made a 



228 PLAY AND RECREATION 

mistake, largely from confusing the gentlemen farmers from 
the city, who farm extravagantly for amusement, with the 
trained agriculturalists turned out by the schools. Certainly 
many of the principles involved in farming are simple enough, 
and to take it for granted that they cannot be taught is to 
assume a good deal of stupidity on the part either of the 
teacher or of the pupil. 

About one, person in every two hundred in the community 
is a teacher. About one in every five hundred is a doctor, 
about one in every six hundred is a lawyer, about one in 
every ten is a farmer ; yet there are probably more prospec- 
tive teachers in normal schools, more embryo doctors in the 
medical schools, more law students in law schools, than there 
are farmers in the agricultural colleges. Perhaps one adult 
woman in fifty is a teacher and needs to understand pedagogy. 
Every woman is likely to become a housewife and mother 
and needs to understand domestic economy and the rearing 
of children. Yet there are probably two or three times as 
many women in normal schools as there arc in schools of 
domestic economy. There is obviously something out of joint 
here, unless it be true that men know by instinct how to 
select seed and cultivate the soil, and women know by the 
same means how to cook and to care for babies. If we com- 
pare the methods of the average farmers with the methods 
of the best farmers, it becomes reasonably evident that there 
are some at least who have not inherited the secret of profit- 
able agriculture. If we compare the rate of infant mortality 
in the city slums or in negro homes with that in the more in- 
telligent families, it becomes evident that there are some at 
least who have not inherited a knowledge of the rearing of 
children, for fully a quarter of these children are carried off 
under one year of age by preventable disease, and mostly for 
ignoring sanitary laws which are well known. 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 229 

In all past ages and periods the tillers of the soil have 
been tied to the land. The race settled down when it evolved 
from the nomadic to the agricultural stage. The American 
farmers are more mobile than any other farmers have ever 
been, but they are still our most fixed and least traveled class. 
Perhaps this is one reason why so few farmers' boys go 
away to agricultural colleges. The fertility of the soil and the 
annual yield in a number of different staple crops is declin- 
ing. We have had a great start, but a number of European 
countries are now making progress more rapidly than we in 
everything except the application of labor-saving machinery 
to agriculture. The need of agricultural education cannot be 
met by the state agricultural colleges as they now exist, be- 
cause too small a proportion of the farmers' boys are going to 
them and because the great majority of the farmers are beyond 
the school age as they understand it. President Pritchett of 
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching 
finds that the effective range of the college or university is not 
more than a hundred miles. Colleges and universities draw 
from the more mobile classes, and the range of the college 
and university is surely much greater than that of the agricul- 
tural college. In order to reach the people, agriculture must 
be brought to them in the form of many agricultural high 
schools or separate agricultural colleges or both, or through 
extension teaching. It is perfectly feasible that each consoli- 
dated school should have a room for agriculture and another 
for domestic science, that should be reserved largely for the 
young men and women during the slack season on the farm. 
Twenty years ago the country youth often continued to attend 
the district school in the winter time until they were twenty or 
twenty-one. To-day they have generally finished the course 
by the time they are fourteen or fifteen, and consider their 
education complete. During six months of the year these 



2 30 PLAY AND RECREATION 

country boys and girls do not have very much to do and might 
well continue their education in a rural high school or exten- 
sion school. In a number of states they are beginning to 
give training in domestic economy and agriculture for these 
older boys and girls. This seems to me one of the most 
hopeful movements that has been begun for years. Ideally 
it would put an agricultural school in every township of the 
state. If this work is carried on from fourteen to twenty, it 
ought to give these young people a really good training in 
the work they are to follow. 

In Denmark, which is less than one third as large as the 
state of New York, there are eighty extension high schools 
and, I understand, twenty-eight agricultural colleges. It has 
a sterile soil, yet Denmark is the most prosperous agricultural 
country in Europe to-day. One can but wonder what the 
United States, with a congenial climate, a fertile soil, and an 
enterprising people, might do with such a system of agricul- 
tural education. 

The practice of farming is probably farther behind our 
knowledge than is the practice of any other trade or pro- 
fession. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that 
the application of our well-established knowledge of agricul- 
ture to the actual farming would at least double the profits 
of the farms for the whole country and might do a great deal 
more than this. This would mean an increased return of a 
hundred or more millions of dollars a year to most states — 
an amount that most of us would think worth considering. 
The prosperity of the farmer means the prosperity of the 
whole country, so this becomes a matter of really national 
importance. Any expense that may be necessary in order to 
bring this knowledge to the farmers will be justified by the 
results, but we should naturally seek the method which is 
most effective and least expensive. 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 231 

Again, the agricultural secretaries and the corn and can- 
ning clubs are making possible the extension of this work as 
it has not been possible before. I recently attended a meet- 
ing of a class of boys that had come from all parts of a rural 
county in North Dakota. A lesson in feeding milch cows 
was being given by the secretary. The problem was the neces- 
sary food to maintain the cow and produce twenty-five pounds 
of milk per day. The analysis of the milk was shown from 
a table, also the amount of each constituent necessary to 
maintain the cow. 

A fodder of timothy hay was tried. It was found to be 
low in protein. In order to produce the twenty-five pounds of 
milk, much expensive oil meal and bran or similar fodders 
would have to be added. It was shown also that timothy had 
a low yield to the acre and was a hard crop on the land. 
Hence it was concluded that it would be very expensive to 
maintain a milch cow on timothy and the grain she would 
need to be fed. A ration of alfalfa was tried and found, with 
ensilage, to contain nearly the constituents required ; with a 
small ration of corii and oats the necessary protein, carbo- 
hydrates, and fats were available. This was shown to be a 
cheap food because it was all raised on the farm, and both 
the alfalfa and the corn gave a large tonnage to the acre 
and tended to increase rather than diminish the fertility of 
the land. I am not an authority on the scientific accuracy of 
the facts brought out, but I assume that they were correct, 
and I have no doubt but that one lesson would be more than 
worth the secretary's salaiy to the county. 

Extension Lectures 

The extension teaching spoken of in the previous para- 
graphs is not strictly social-center work, though it is apt to 
result from the organization of the social center ; but so far 



232 PLAY AND RECREATION 

as it is done in the evening and with certain social features 
that grow naturally out of the work in domestic economy, it 
comes very near to the regular activities of the social center. 
Such extension teaching will do much for the younger gen- 
eration, but it does not seem likely that the adult farmer will 
go to school, even if the school is brought to his door. He 
can only be reached through extension lectures and farmers' 
institutes. There is far greater need of extension lectures 
from the agricultural college than from the university. For 
social and educational reasons there ought to be an exten- 
sion lecture in every farming community at least once a week 
through six or eight months of the year. I used to be a local 
superintendent of lectures in New" York City. My center was 
on the East Side, where the people were largely foreigners, 
with a very imperfect understanding of the English language. 
There were open saloons, theaters, and recreation centers on 
every hand, yet these lectures were nearly always well at- 
tended. There are one hundred seventy-five centers in New 
York City where such lectures are being given, and there are 
more than four thousand lecturers. Some fifty other cities 
have now taken up these free extension lectures. The coun- 
try needs them more than the city. It has few rival at- 
tractions, and it needs the stimulus and information that they 
might give. It seems likely that the attendance would be as 
good or better than it is in the city. In my experience as a 
lecturer the smaller the town the larger the attendance is 
likely to be. The state can afford to furnish lectures to its 
rural population quite as well as the city can afford to furnish 
them to the immigrant, who constitutes the majority of the 
audiences. So far as prosperity and the public welfare are 
concerned, the state is no less interested in the industrial 
and political education of adults than it is in the scholastic 
education of children. I believe that it is quite possible to 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 233 

add millions to the annual output and to remake the policies 
of a state by a well-planned course of extension lectures that 
would really reach the people. 

The great difficulty with the extension work that has thus 
far been done by the state universities is that there has been 
no apparent plan or policy behind it except the giving of in- 
formation and the increasing of the influence of the university. 
It has been a mere scattering of information. Such work may 
be worth while, but it can never be highly effective. Behind 
any kind of extension lecture work should be some plan of 
results to be secured. It should be built on the real needs of the 
state and the country and should attempt to supply the in- 
formation and inspiration that is needed in order that the 
country may be more largely prosperous and happy. It is 
somewhat perilous to undertake to make up such a program 
of lectures, but in most country sections the following topics 
should be dealt with among others : 

Rural Cooperative Associations Here and Abroad 

Business Methods of the Farm 

Making Farm Life Attractive 

The Selection of Seed 

The Testing of Milk and of Cattle 

Spraying and the Raising of Fruit 

The Raising of Corn, etc. 

The Hygiene of the Home 

The Care of Infants 

Saving Steps and Motions in the House 

The Garden for the Table 

A Musical Program 

Several Popular Lectures 

Such a program would have something in it for everybody, 
and it would be a definite contribution to the problems of 
country life. To carry it through would require a considerable 
expenditure of money, but not a prohibitive amount. For the 



234 PLAY AND RECREATION 

most part it would be merely a more effective organization 
of existing agencies. From the first this would demand state 
aid and some state direction. There are five different agen- 
cies that should combine in producing the program : the 
state university, the state agricultural college, the state board 
of health, the normal schools and private colleges, and the 
different national and state organizations that are promoting 
various phases of the public welfare. If only a few centers 
were organizfed, such a program could be produced practically 
without cost, as all of these people are already on salary for 
this purpose. The writer recently promoted such a course of 
lectures for a small Michigan town. It has been organized 
with little effort, the lectures and recitals have been well 
attended, and there has been almost no expense except a 
few small bills for traveling. If this should become general, 
it would mean that the university, the agricultural college, and 
the state board of health would have to enlarge their staffs 
of extension lecturers, and that the men in the normal schools 
and colleges would probably receive a small extra salary or 
fee from the state, according to the number of such extension 
engagements that they filled. 

Probably the best organization of this work would be to 
turn over the extension lectures of all of these departments 
to a consolidated extension department for the state, which 
might be under the direction of a special state ofificial chosen 
for the purpose. Or a special extension department might 
be built up by the state, with lecturers of its own. In most 
states no one of the existing agencies in the field has at its 
command all the talent that is needed for lecture courses in 
a rural community, though the agricultural college probably 
comes the nearest to it. 

As such a department does not exist at present, the most 
feasible thing to do is for the State Superintendent of Public 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 235 

Instruction to make up lists of speakers and subjects that are 
available for educational use in the state and send them around 
to the school authorities with a model program for the season. 
Such a list might well include the lecturers who may be had 
free from the state departments and also available lecturers, 
with their subjects, whose fees would come within the reach 
of rural communities. The public lecture is a feature of social- 
center work nearly everywhere, so this will be no innovation. 

Farmers' Institutes 

The social-center organization might well arrange to hold 
at the center, at some time during the winter, a farmers' 
institute, or perhaps better a joint meeting of the teachers 
and farmers in a special institute which has come to be known 
as the Hesperia Movement, from the little Michigan town of 
Hesperia, where these meetings were first held. 

SU.MMER ChAUTAUQUAS 

The Chautauqua movement is one of the most hopeful 
educational movements that has come to this or any country. 
It is essentially a social center spread out over a considerable 
period of time. It is weak on the civic side, but it has the 
lectures and extension classes, the entertainments and social 
opportunities, much the same as those found in the regular 
social center. These Chautauquas have become general for 
nearly every town of two thousand inhabitants over the Middle 
West. They have a message that the country cannot afford 
to lose. Every rural person needs at least as much of intel- 
lectual stimulation, information, and social opportunity as the 
annual Chautauqua gives. 

On the whole the best Chautauqua for a rural community 
that I have ever attended was the one in which I recently 



236 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



participated at Valley City, North Dakota. Perhaps I cannot 
do better than to describe this Chautauqua. 

Valley City is the county seat of Barnes County. This 
county is fortunate in having as its county superintendent 
Miss Minnie Nielson, who is at the same time the president 
of the State Federation of Woman's Clubs and one of the 
most able county superintendents in the country. School 
fairs were held at various places during the year, and one 




> I I tCK JUDGIXG 

girl was selected from each rural school to attend the school 
of dairying and domestic economy which was held at the 
summer Chautauqua. This gave a group of about one hun- 
dred fifty girls. They had class work in dairying, cooking, 
and bird and nature study until half past two each afternoon. 
After that they played games or attended the sessions of the 
Chautauqua as they felt disposed. The Chautauqua lasted for 
seventeen days ; the girls paid four dollars for tents, bedding, 
and food. I believe nearly every girl carried back with her 
something that would help to make her life more interesting. 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 237 

There was also a similar encampment for the boys under 
the Better-Farming Association of North Dakota, of which 
Mr. Thomas Cooper is the able executive. Many of the les- 
sons were conducted by the agricultural secretaiy for the 
county, Mr. Mylan. These lessons seemed to me singularly 
practical and valuable. After the lessons were over, there was 
a swimming lesson and then a ball game. The boys attended 
the Chautauqua in the evening. There was also an encamp- 
ment of the Boy Scouts on the grounds. 

The Chautauqua has of course the regular series of lec- 
tures and entertainments, such as are found at other Chau- 
tauquas, and for next year, the Northern Pacific and Soo 
railroads promise to combine in starting a demonstration 
farm adjoining the Chautauqua grounds. This will permit of 
various demonstrations to the farmers who are present and 
will increase the practical effectiveness of the farmers' insti- 
tute which it is proposed to hold in connection with the 
Chautauqua. 

This Chautauqua employs its secretary, Alex Karr, by the 
year, and has just started an extension department for the 
establishing of social centers and reading circles throughout 
the county. A Chautauqua such as this has tremendous pos- 
sibilities in the improving of rural conditions. 

As I attend Chautauquas it seems to me that on the whole 
they are somewhat too much given to the lecture that is 
merely entertaining ; that they are not well enough suited to 
the definite problems of the community in which they are 
placed ; that there is not as much conference and discussion 
among the people themselves as there should be ; and that 
there is great need of developing the active recreational side 
of the life. A Chautauqua that would do this might well intro- 
duce into the country also the games that are suited to it and 
create much of the spirit of play that the year is apt to lack ; 



■238 PLAY AND RECREATION 

but, as it is, it is bearing a message of cheer to thousands of 
homes and is giving to the farmer and his wife, his son and 
daughter, much to think of at the plow or the dishwashing. 
It is sowing thousands of seed thoughts which will ripen 
during the year into character and wisdom. 

The Civic Debate 

The old-time debates at rural schoolhouses were largely of 
abstract themes, or at least of distant ones, such as the tariff, 
capital punishment, and the like. The problems discussed 
were not the problems of the people who discussed them. 
Their elucidation had no direct effect on any one. The con- 
clusions reached resulted in no action. These debates were 
carried on by a community not as well educated as are most 
farming communities at the present time. Still they were 
successful in eliciting much interest, in training some of our 
best public speakers, and in making a valuable social occasion 
for the neighborhood. We know better how to organize 
debates at present, and it would seem that it ought to be 
possible to revive the old-time debates and to make them real 
instruments for the public welfare. 

It should be taken for granted in the beginning that the 
problems which should be discussed are the current problems 
in the life of the people, and that these discussions should 
not lead so much to a decision as to who won the debate as to 
a decision as to what is to be done. Such a debate is sure to 
elicit the interest of the community and to give the best pos- 
sible training in public speaking. It would be impossible to 
make up a list of subjects that would fit every community, 
but the following will be problems in nearly all : 

Resolved that we should combine and order our farm implements 
together. 

Resolved that the schools of this township should be consolidated. 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 239 

Resolved that we work for the consolidation of all the rural churches 
of this township. 

Resolved that the center purchase a moving-picture machine. 

Resolved that we should vote on an appropriation for graveling or 
macadamizing the roads. 

Resolved that the boys and girls and the hired men shall be given a 
half holiday on Saturday. 

Resolved that this township shall employ a visiting nurse. 

Resolved that apple growing should be as profitable in Michigan as 
in Washington. 

So far as these debates involve public action, committees 
should be appointed to secure the action desired. 

It is believed that such a series of debates would be an 
education of the public to current needs, that they would 
start many people to reading on rural problems who had not 
heretofore taken the trouble, and that they would soon pro- 
duce a community well informed in the matters essential 
to its welfare. 

The Library 

If there is any place where people are accustomed to go, 
this is the place for the library, because it is mostly inertia 
that keeps us from reading. To go to a library building, look 
up a title on a card index, send in the card, and wait for the 
book to appear is too much trouble for most people ; but if 
they come where they see the books, a natural curiosity leads 
them to look at some of them, and looking often leads to lik- 
ing. At the time I was a resident at the University Settle- 
ment in New York our little library at the Settlement had a 
larger circulation, for the number of books that we had, than 
any other library in the city. It was merely because the young 
people came there anyway, saw the books, and were tempted 
to read. The libraries in the field houses of the Chicago play- 
grounds are usually crowded. The township library should 
be at the consolidated school or the social center if there is 



240 PLAY AND RECREATION 

one, on account of both the children and the adults. A library 
is nearly as necessary to an elementary school as it is to a 
college. It is impossible to study geography or history or lit- 
erature, so as to get much out of them, without a good deal 
of reading outside the text, and the school that has failed to 
establish in the child the love for and the habit of reading 
has done only a small part of its work. The school only 
starts the child on the road to learning, and he must continue 
this by his private reading after his school days are over. If 
during his school days he has not formed the habit of reading 
books, the chances are that his later reading will be largely 
limited to the daily paper. 

The library is more necessary to the country than it is to 
the city. The city man can see most of the things of the 
world and hear most of the distinguished men, if he chooses, 
at first hand. The country man does not have this oppor- 
tunity. The city man has the theater and the club and the 
streets to divert his attention. The country man has few diver- 
sions. The city man is about equally busy all the year round, 
but the country man has a slack season in winter, when there 
is plenty of time to read. Most country sections in the North 
now have some sort of library, but I believe they are but little 
used. I know a township where there is a library of about 
twelve hundred books, which are purchased by township offi- 
cials from money collected from fines. It is kept in a bakery 
in the lower part of the town, and about thirty or forty books 
are circulated a week. These books consist mostly of a 
cheap grade of novels. The circulation is almost entirely of 
books of this class. The explanation, I think, consists in two 
things : — in the first place, the books are not conveniently 
placed; and, in the second place, they are not well selected. 
It would appear that most of them were chosen for romantic 
girls of about sixteen, to judge from the titles. I have never 



EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION 241 

seen books on the new agriculture or rural life. Surely such 
books as Butterfield's " Rural Progress," Bailey's " Country 
Life Movement," Carver's " Principles of Rural Economics," 
Haggard's "' Rural Denmark," and Plunket's " Rural Life 
Movement in the United States " ought to be in every rural 
library, and of course the Report of the Commission on Coun- 
try Life. Then there ought to be a good practical agricultural 
library dealing with the problems of the particular section. 
There ought to be a similar library for the women on the 
care of the home and the rearing of children. It is doubtless 
true that there would be no great demand for these books at 
first, but the work of the school, with its agriculture and 
domestic science, should stimulate the interest among the 
young people, and they would interest their seniors. 

I would not have anything that I have said taken as a dis- 
paragement of good novels. Novel reading is one of the 
most universal forms of recreation. It transports one in- 
stantly from the dull and the monotonous to the strange, the 
romantic, the dangerous ; while in our own httle sphere of 
action it enables us to live the lives of the great and the distin- 
guished, to ride in our carriage or yacht or automobile, to 
converse with kings and princes, and to understand the hopes 
and fears, loves and hates, of those in every sphere of life. 
It is a way of gaining experience vicariously, of enlarging 
the sympathy, of coming to understand others by living their 
lives. It is one of the chief means of social education. It is 
needless to say that the farmer needs this enlargement of his 
social experience more than others. He needs the novel both 
for this and as a relief from long hours of monotonous labor, 
and to throw off old points of view and worries and get new 
points of view and new sympathies. In connection with the 
rural schools in many sections, they are beginning to make 
pretty adequate provision for the exchange of books from 



242 PLAY AND RECREATION 

school to school, so that fifteen hundred volumes are made 
to furnish fairly satisfactory reading facilities to a township. 

It is probably best to have the books furnished in some 
way by the state, as this will insure a better selection, a 
cheaper price, and a more efficient way of dealing with books 
that are in need of repair. If the township library can be at 
the consolidated school or the social center, the children can 
use it constantly in connection with their school work, and 
they can draw out books for their parents also at any time they 
may desire. When the parents come to the social center, they 
will see the books and be led to take some of them themselves. 
I believe that such a location for the library would secure 
the selection of better books in the first place, and that it 
would at least quadruple its use in most localities. 

The educational activities thus far described should take 
at least one night a week for everybody, and much more than 
this for those who take any of the evening courses in agri- 
culture or domestic science. These educational parts of the 
program will also be the expensive features. They should be 
supported from school funds. The advantages that would 
come to the country are a sufficient reason for them. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE SOCIAL CENTER, THE CURE OF RURAL ISOLATION 

The primary ideas that lie behind the social center are 
social and civic, and it is for this reason that it is so much 
needed in the country. All of the educational purposes that 
have been mentioned will have their social side as well. They 
offer opportunities for the country people to get together and 
to talk in connection with all exhibitions, lectures, classes, in- 
stitutes, and the library. It is well that these social occasions 
should be definitely planned for and that the department of 
domestic economy should serve tea and sandwiches as often 
as possible, in order to create social occasions. The social 
center is the natural cure of the isolation of the country and 
its lack of recreation. The majority of the work of the world 
is social. The lawyer, the doctor, the preacher, the merchant, 
and most tradesmen are working constantly with others. The 
farmer, on the other hand, is working in the open fields and 
by himself. He may see only his own family from one end 
of the week to the other. With the coming of the rural de- 
livery he no longer needs to go to town even for his mail. 
He raises most of the things he needs for the table. He has 
an abundance of time to think, but little opportunity to talk, 
except with members of his own family. Doubtless he has 
become accustomed to these conditions, but they are uncon- 
genial to the boys and to the hired man. We are naturally 
social animals. Children cry when left by themselves, and only 
so far as we become engrossed in the work we are doing, or in 
our thoughts, can any of us overcome the sense of loneliness 

243 



244 PLAY AND RECREATION 

from being by ourselves. The nature of the farmer's work 
cannot be changed, but it is possible to provide in the eve- 
ning the society that the day has lacked. European peasants 
live in villages and go out to their farms each morning. 
This has been suggested as the cure of the isolation here, 
but the farmhouses are built in the country, and it does not 
seem likely that the American farmer will ever pick up his 
house and move into the town. Instead of this, as soon as he 
is able he often gives up his farm and moves to the village to 
live. The isolation of the country is usually considered to be 
its greatest drawback and the cause of the most of this city- 
ward trend. As it makes the country less attractive, it causes 
property to decrease in value ; as it tends to drive away the 
most capable and leave the less capable behind, it causes 
farmers to lose caste and standing. The social center is the 
natural solution. As the people cannot get together at their 
work, they should get together in their play. The social 
center is the more necessary in the country than in the city 
in proportion as the life of the farm is more solitary. 

Farmers must play in the Winter Time 

City people take their vacations and do most of their play- 
ing in the summer time. We have very many summer resorts, 
but comparatively few winter resorts. The city man usually 
has a half holiday in summer, but seldom in the winter. In 
the country these conditions are reversed. The summer is 
the busy season, when the daylight hours are long and most 
of the urgent work has to be done ; but over the entire 
northern part of the country the farmer has little to do in the 
colder months except to care for his stock. It is this less 
crowded period that must be largely utilized for recreation, 
education, and sociability. The farmer probably has as much 
leisure as other men, but it is very unequally distributed over 



THE CURE OF RURAL ISOLATION 245 

the year. Since he must do the major part of his playing 
in the winter, it seems to follow that he must do it largely 
indoors, and the social center is the natural solution. 

Country MoRALrrv 

There seems to be a general feeling that moral conditions 
are bad in the city and good in the country, but I question if 
this is so. The city has its great criminals and philanthro- 
pists ; it furnishes the rich soil in which all things grow rank. 
The country does not produce the great saints or the great 
sinners. It has no prostitution, but there are probably quite 
as many loose young people in the country as in the city. 
The hired man who goes to town to " have a good time " is 
apt to get drunk and visit the worst type of houses. Im- 
moral tales and obscene language are a large part of the con- 
versation of hired men and country boys. The sex instinct is 
very insistent in the teens, and there is gathered about it the 
romance of love. Country youth are not usually chaperoned, 
and there are abundant opportunities for seclusion. Add to 
this the fact that there often is little else to think of, and 
you have a condition out of which immorality will always 
grow. There is scarcely a social occasion which is not beset 
with temptations, the dances are generally held in the woods 
or at hotels, and walks and drives are solitary. The country 
must give a proper organization to its social life if it is only 
for the sake of the boys and girls. 

What Kinds of Recreation 

If there is a well-equipped consolidated school, every sort 
of recreation that is found at a city social center may well be 
started there. If there is a gymnasium, there may be gymnas- 
tics and folk dancing ; there may be matched games in volley 
ball and basket ball, and even bowling and shuffleboard will 



246 PLAY AND RECREATION 

not be out of place. There may very likely be prejudice 
against social dancing, but there is no other place where it 
may be cjuite so wholesome as at the social center, where the 
whole family is present. There probably will not be much 
prejudice against the quadrille and the Virginia reel, even if 
the round dances are not approved of, and these will serve to 
make the people better acquainted. 

Singing 

There is a good deal of feeling in certain quarters that the 
old-time singing school should be revived in the open country. 
The singing school of the olden times was a valuable social 
occasion ; it offered a pleasant opportunity for the young 
people to get together, and it did much to make the rural 
home socially self-supporting. Singing is one of the things 
that draws the home circle together and establishes the family 
life. It makes for sociability everywhere and helps people to 
get acquainted. It is reported that most of the " sparking " 
of olden days was done at the old-time singing school or 
at the spelling match. General singing is a large element in 
many of the city social centers. 

An effort is also being made to revive the old-time "spell- 
ing down," and for much the same reasons. Obviously 
spelling has not the same social value as music ; nevertheless, 
at least one evening a month at the social center might well 
be given to each of these activities of the old-time social center. 

The great weakness of the social as well as the industrial 
life of the country is the lack of organization. There is not 
at present any place where country people get together so 
that this organization can be effected. The social center 
makes possible the organization of every sort of recreation, 
such as the Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, athletic clubs 
and tournaments, corn and canning clubs, woman's clubs, 



THE CURE OF RURAL ISOLATION 247 

the grange, etc. There should be some available room in the 
social center where each of these organizations could meet. 
In most cases it may be a classroom, but there should be two 
or three social rooms in each building which may be used as 
teachers' rooms, committee rooms, school-board rooms, club- 
rooms, or social rooms, as occasion demands. 

The Moving Picture 

The moving-picture man is now found in every part of the 
globe, making a record of whatever is rare or curious. Nearly 
every great event must face dozens of machines, which record 
with indisputable accuracy the facts, and there are also large 
companies of actors who are performing before the camera 
scenes from great dramas, from literature and history, as well 
as numberless plays in a lighter vein. We usually think of 
the m.oving picture in connection with the theater, but there is 
really no reason for this association in our minds except that 
at the present time it is mostly seen there. The moving pic- 
ture is the power of representation or description carried to 
the superlative degree. It gives to all the opportunity to wit- 
ness all great events and to be conversant with all countries 
and all occupations. Almost anything that the eye may behold 
by itself or through the microscope may be represented in 
the moving picture. It is a story where events happen rapidly, 
a condensation of life with the annoying delays left out. 
Much that we see in the moving-picture theaters is merely 
the dramatization of dime novels. The best that can be said 
for them is that they are better than the saloon or the brothel, 
and that they are at least as good as the stories which they 
represent. A dime novel is not very uplifting at best, but that 
is not the fault of the picture but of the story which it portrays. 
The moving picture can represent better than language, either 
spoken or printed, the raising of all fruits, vegetables, and 



248 PLAY AND RECREATION 

grains, all processes of manufacture, all customs and ways of 
people, all historical events, crucial events in biography and 
literature, all dramas which are essentially dramas of action, 
and nearly the whole microscopic world, which is so largely 
the world of science. This indicates that the moving picture is 
the most effective way of teaching the processes of industry, 
geography, history, much of literature, and much of science. 
It must in the near future be a part of the equipment of 
every school.' 

The old-time moving-picture machine was expensive, and 
the film cost from a hundred to five thousand dollars to 
produce. Mr. Edison has, however, recently put on the mar- 
ket a small moving-picture machine, the Home Kinetoscope, 
which costs only from sixty-five to seventy-five dollars. The 
film is only a little over an inch wide, with three parallel 
bands of pictures. It is eighty as opposed to a thousand feet 
in length, and costs from two dollars fifty cents to twenty 
dollars. These films can be exchanged for thirty cents to one 
dollar, according to the grade of the film. The eighty-foot 
film contains the same number of pictures as a thousand 
feet of the old film. The mechanism of the Edison Home 
Kinetoscope is so simple that it can be operated by a child. 
The film is noncombustible. As it is usually shown it makes 
a picture about four or five feet square. It uses either elec- 
tricity or acetylene, and a cheap acetylene generator can be 
secured with it. However, it has more flicker than the large 
machine, and does not give as satisfactory results. This 
small machine was designed by Mr. Edison especially with 
the view of introducing it into private parlors and the indi- 
vidual classrooms of the public school, and he is reported to 
have men all over the world now taking the pictures for the 
moving-picture geography. He has another set of educators 
who are preparing the films on history, and we may expect 



THE CURE OF RURAL ISOLATION 249 

that we shall soon have a set of educational films that will 
cover nearly the whole curriculum of the elementary school. 
He says this is to be his greatest achievement, the putting 
the school course into moving pictures. Something over one 
hundred different school subjects are now on the market for 
this small machine, and the number is being rapidly increased. 
Within the last few months the kinetophone, or the talking 
picture machine, has been perfected and put on the market, 
so that it is now possible to represent sounds as well as 
objects. The moving picture has the great advantage over 
books, that it is much more interesting. There would not be 
many cases of children playing hooky from a moving-picture 
school. The impressions that it makes are very much more 
vivid and are consequently better remembered ; and it is a 
great saver of time, because it abbreviates the processes by 
leaving out unimportant details. On the surface it would 
seem to be expensive, but when we consider its efficiency in 
what it does, I doubt if it is really so. 

Morally the moving-picture theater is probably even now 
our best type of theater. There is much less in the films 
that is objectionable than there is in the plays given in the 
highest-priced theater on Broadway. There is a National 
Board of Film Censors in New York, by whom many of the 
films are censored. The films to which this Board objects are 
destroyed, and if only certain parts of the film are objection- 
able, these parts are cut out. Most of the larger cities have 
also their own board of film censors, which is usually in the 
police department. As a result very few of the films shown 
in progressive cities are objectionable. They may be inane, 
and often are; they may be untrue to life, which often hap- 
pens; they represent a sort of dream world of romance, 
where the hero always wins, however foolish he may be ; 
but there is seldom anything positively bad in the moving 



2 50 PLAY AND RECREATION 

pictures that are now being made in this countiy or that can 
be seen in any of the moving-picture tlieaters. The most 
objectionable features are the vaudeville interludes, which are 
generally of a low order as art and are sometimes sugges- 
tive. But one may see a great deal at almost any of these 
theaters that is well worth seeing. 

Not long ago I saw at Hull House, Chicago, a picture of 
the life of Moses. The whole story was there in the vivid 
colors of the, Orient, as plain to the eyes as though one had 
been an eyewitness of these great events. 

At a theater in Worcester was a picture of the Boston 
Tea Party. We saw the meeting in which the plot was 
perfected, the men disguising themselves, and finally the tea 
being thrown overboard. The various uniforms which were 
shown were, I believe, historically accurate. Any child could 
see this picture for fifteen minutes and remember it for the 
rest of his life, whereas he might study the ordinary histor- 
ical account as found in the school histories for a long time 
and then forget it in fifteen minutes. 

Not long ago I saw in a Western city a picture represent- 
ing the sleeping sickness in Africa. A German scientist is 
working in his laboratory, and at length succeeds in isolating 
the germ of the disease. He makes a culture and inoculates 
a rat. Before injecting the serum, he takes a drop of the 
rat's blood and puts it under the microscope. The red 
corpuscles of the blood can be seen moving about with the 
greatest freedom. They are so numerous that they make the 
picture dark, The next day he takes another drop of the rat's 
blood and puts it under the microscope. You are the eye- 
witness of a great tragedy. The germs of the disease, which 
can be seen as plainly as good-sized fish, are swimming about 
in the drop of blood, and as they go they attack the red 
corpuscles and eat them up. The second day he puts a 



THE CURE OF RURAL ISOLATION 251 

second drop of blood under the microscope, and you see that 
the war of extermination has gone on merrily. The germs 
have become an army, and the red corpuscles are making 
their last stand. The third day the rat dies, and the micro- 
scope shows that the red corpuscles are all gone and the 
germs are in full possession. This picture was much more 
satisfying than the ordinary microscope observation, because 
it was the experiment that succeeded under perfect conditions. 
There are also excellent films representing the literature of 
the high school. The trouble is that at present these valuable 
films are as " two kernels of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff." 
One has to see so much inane material before a really good 
film appears, that it is hardly worth the time. It is estimated 
that more than four millions of people visit these moving- 
picture theaters every day. They are mostly people of the 
working classes, who are seeking rest after a hard day's work. 
The films are intended to furnish amusement to the weary, 
not instruction for the most part. 

It is difficult for the moving-picture man to select his 
films if he wants to, because as a rule they are sent out on a 
circuit and come to each in regular order. If he wishes to 
select his pictures, he has to pay more for them than he does 
if he will take them in series. Of course such an unselected 
series of films, representing for the most part dime-novel ad- 
ventures, is not adapted to the use of the schools, and in time 
there must be an exchange intended for the schools alone. 

The first step for such a series has already been taken by 
Mr. Edison. We must have a moving-picture geography made 
by an expert geographer, a moving-picture history planned 
by a historian, selected events from the lives of great men to 
give a vivid knowledge of the man and to inspire emulation, 
and yet other pictures which will represent many of the great 
dramas and much of the best literature. All the different 



252 PLAY AND RECREATION 

trades and occupations should be represented, both for the 
sake of the general knowledge and that young people may 
choose their life work with intelligence. 

The moving picture has wonderful effectiveness in teach- 
ing moral lessons, because of the keen sympathy that it 
creates. It is easy to see that the whole audience is often 
indignant at deeds of cruelty, and the picture performers are 
sometimes hissed as they would be in real life. The keenest 
sympathy with suffering is shown. Mr. Fairchild in his courses 
for moral education uses the moving picture constantly. A 
short time ago I took a boy of three to a moving-picture show. 
One of the scenes shown was of a bully who was unkind to 
a dog. The dog is hungry and the man will not give him any- 
thing to eat, and kicks him when he comes near. He finally 
catches the dog, ties a stick of dynamite to his tail, and 
lights the fuse. The dog, however, does not perform accord- 
ing to expectations, but runs in among the men. They run 
and the dog runs after them. They enter a shed followed by 
the dog. The men run out, but the dog seizes the bully and 
holds him ; the men lock the door, the bully pulls the stick 
of dynamite off the dog's tail, the dog crawls under the door, 
and the shed blows up. The next day I was out walking in 
the woods with this small boy, and he said, " If we should 
meet a dog anywhere, we would give him something to eat, 
would n't we .? " and again in a moment, " Then he would like 
us, would n't he ? " I do not think any amount of talk about 
kindness to animals would have made the same impression. 
The church ought to have its own exchange for all the Bible 
stories, and most social lessons can be taught more effectively 
through moving pictures than in any other way. If we are to 
have moral education in our schools, or if we would introduce 
more kindliness into daily life, the picture machine is a 
powerful ally. 



THE CURE OF RURAL ISOLATION 253 

As every city and state will need a series of films, the 
practical thing would seem to be for the city or state to make 
a contract with the companies for a series of films represent- 
ing the approved subjects of the curriculum, and then to 
send these films around from school to school within the city. 
This would require every school to have one moving-picture 
machine at least, and perhaps one for each classroom if the 
smaller machine proves to be the practical one. For the social 
center the large machine will be better, except for the one- 
room school, and with the moving picture the social center 
will be a success from the first. The same pictures may be 
used in the school and the center. This will also keep the 
parents in touch with the school work, as there will be no dif- 
ficulty in getting them to follow a geography or history lesson 
in moving pictures. 

Moving-picture machines have been installed already in 
the social centers in a number of cities, and in some of the 
high schools. Almost any film company has a considerable 
number of films that are suitable for use in a public school or 
a social center. Three films, approximately a fifty-minute pro- 
gram, need not cost more than three or four dollars, so that the 
expense is not at all prohibitive. A catalogue of the subjects 
offered can be secured by writing to any film company. Wher- 
ever the moving picture can be installed, it will solve the 
question of attendance and will make the place a real center. 

The Social Center in the Summer Time 

Picnicking seems to be the one form of rural recreation 
that is common among farmers at present, and the common 
picnic grove is the natural summer edition of the social center. 
The sort of picnic that is needed is a township picnic for 
every Saturday afternoon from the first of May to the end 
of September. This should take place at the township park 



254 PLAY AND RECREATION 

or the consolidated school if there is one. This will give the 
opportunity for the Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls to prac- 
tice. It will permit of the organization of athletic clubs and 
the holding of tournaments in tennis, baseball, basket ball, 
and volley ball. 

Tlic nionthlv program. The activities that have been out- 
lined for the social center have been educational, recreational, 
and civic. Perhaps they may seem to be too numerous. The 
program suggested v/ould appear as follows : 

The Monthly Program 
First Friday of each month : singing school 
Second Friday : spelling match 
Third Friday : debate 
Fourth Friday : school exhibition and fair 
Every Wednesday night : a public lecture 
Thursday nights : classes in domestic economy and agriculture followed 

by lunch and dancing 
Saturday night : moving pictures 

The young people would meet in the gymnasium or the 
classrooms for their clubs or exercises at the same time their 
seniors were having their meeting. 

For the summer time there should be a Saturday-afternoon 
picnic each week and drills of the Boy Scouts, meetings of 
the Camp Plre Girls, and athletic tournaments and contests. 

It may appear that the social center is taking the people 
away from home too much, but it must be remembered that 
the same person will not as a rule attend each evening, and 
also that, as the whole family attend together a number of 
these occasions, it does not disrupt the home, even if they are 
frequently away. Such a center would organize public opinion 
into a strong restraining force, and would keep the boys and 
girls away from questionable resorts by giving them a more 
attractive place to go. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE SOCIAL CENTER FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF 
COUNTRY LIFE 

Present Lack of Organization 

The farmers are more poorly organized than any other 
class, and probably they get a smaller proportion of the just 
returns from their industry. The isolation of the farms has 
made communication difficult and the farmer a self-sufficient 
individualist. This sturdy independence is a real social and 
moral safeguard to the nation, but it also has made cooperation 
difficult, and the farmers as a class ineffective in proportion 
to their numbers. To overcome the effects of this isolation 
is perhaps the greatest problem of the country at present. 

This condition has not always prevailed. The pioneers 
may have been scattered over a large area, but they were 
drawn closely together in spirit. There were no carpenters 
in the early community, and together they erected the cabin 
of the newcomer. There were no reapers or mowers, and 
neighbor followed neighbor in the swath. There were no 
nurses, and each of the neighbors watched in turn with the 
one that was sick. It was essential to safety oftentimes that 
they stand together to repel the attacks of the Indians. Out 
of this condition grew a feeling of neighborliness, a sense of 
solidarity that has been largely displaced by the coming in 
of the different trades and the development of labor-saving 
machinery. The results of these developments have been 
good for industry but bad for the social life. 

-55 



2 56 PLAY AND RECREATION 

It cannot be expected that such a condition will create a 
community sense or that such a community will work for 
clean politics, good roads, good schools, good churches, or 
other common purposes. The community cannot well do this, 
because there is no real community. It has no organization 
or general meeting through which it can work. Thus the 
community loses the improvements, and the people lose 
the social life, the moral safeguards from an active public 
opinion, and the social education from working for the public 
welfare. Our cities are rapidly developing a sense of solidarity 
or mutual dependence to-day. It is becoming a part of the 
public consciousness that the welfare of all is dependent on 
the welfare of each, and there is a growing sense of responsi- 
bility for the conditions under which the weaker members of 
the community are living. But the farmer has very little class 
consciousness, and he cannot well have such a consciousness 
unless he meets with others of his class more. The social 
center is essential to the organization of country life. 

The Grange 

I was told at Rocky Ford, Colorado, last winter that if 
they could get seventy-five cents for a crate of cantaloupes, 
they were well satisfied. Seventy-five cents for sixty is one 
cent and a quarter apiece. When I have paid twenty-five or 
thirty cents for one of these at the hotel or in the dining car, 
it has seemed to me that there had been a good deal of loss 
between the cup and the lip, that apparently the cost of pro- 
duction did not have much to do with the cost to the con- 
sumer, and that in general the farmer was not getting his 
share. Farmers can have what they want if they will work 
for it as a class, but the trouble thus far has been that they have 
not known what they wanted, and they have had very insuffi- 
cient leadership from people who understood the problems 



ORGANIZATION OF COUNTRY LIFE 257 

of the farm. If the new facilities that are needed for the eleva- 
tion of farm life are to be secured, they must come through the 
farmers themselves, and this can only be done by their work- 
ing together. The grange seems to be the only organization 
at present that is prepared to attack the problems of both the 
business and the social welfare of the farming community. 
It is in itself a social and recreational agency of no small im- 
portance in the country. I quote from Butterfield's " Chapters 
in Rural Progress " : 

The methods of work of the grange are many and varied. In addition 
to the regular literary and social programmes previously mentioned, 
socials are held at the homes of members, entertainments of various kinds 
occur at the grange hall, and in many ways the association becomes the 
center of the intellectual and social interest of the community. It is a 
debating society, club, lecture course, parliamentary society, theater, and 
circulating library. In fact it lends itself to almost any function that will 
instruct, benefit, entertain, or assist its members financially, morally, in- 
tellectually or socially. Of course not every grange is awake to its op- 
portunities ; but as a rule, where a live one exists, it is the acknowledged 
leader in social movements. 

The grange has within itself the possibility of doing nearly 
all for the rural community that the social center may do. 
It is largely the question of inclination, except that it does 
not seem likely that the grange may ever receive public funds. 
The farmers, however, are poorly organized, and the member- 
ship in the grange is relatively very limited. The numbers 
are increasing, but Butterfield finds in the five states where 
the grange is best organized — New York, Maine, Michi- 
gan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania — that the total 
membership in 1905 is only 222,000. The rural population 
of these five states is probably not less than six millions, and 
as men and women and children over fourteen may be 
members of the grange, this would probably indicate that 



258 PLAY AND RECREATION 

about five or six per cent of the population of the rural com- 
munities who are eligible to membership are actually members 
of the grange. It is often difficult to become a member. A 
friend of mine, a highly respected member of the community, 
had his name before the grange for six months before it was 
acted upon favorably, and my name was similarly before 
the grange for more than two months before action was 
taken. Such tactics prevent the grange from filling the real 
need of the country. It must become more democratic and 
invite all to become members without undue delay or red tape, 
or else let the membership be an inner circle but invite all 
to take part in its general activities. As compared with the 
labor unions the grange seems to be much more exclusive 
and membership more difficult. Every community needs 
what we might term a League for Rural Progress, — some 
sort of organization such as exists for New England and for 
several individual states, — that will concern itself with every 
phase of the public welfare. This the social-center association 
might do. This the grange or the rural church might also 
accomplish. The one that actually does it will probably be- 
come the dominant factor in rural life. If the grange takes 
in all and seeks to serve all, it will become the social center. 
If, on the other hand, the social-center association conceives 
its functions more largely and really reaches the community, it 
may on its civic side do the work that the grange has been 
seeking to do and make the grange unnecessary, or the grange 
may hold its meetings at the social-center hall and become a 
cooperating agency. 

The Social Center and Economic Cooperation 

The country-life experts seem to be pretty well agreed 
that the greatest weakness of the country at present is the 
lack of organization among farmers and their failure to 



ORGANIZATION OP^ COUNTRY LIFE 259 

cooperate in common enterprises. Only a small percentage 
of the farmers are members of any farmers' organization. 
Although they are the largest single class in the country, they 
have little influence on legislation or national politics. They 
do not combine, and they consequently sell their produce for 
whatever they can get and buy whatever they need at any 
price that they may be charged. Cooperative associations 
have greatly improved these conditions abroad. In Denmark 
they have managed largely to eliminate the profits of the 
middleman, and to sell their produce directly to the consumer 
and purchase directly of the manufacturer. Cooperative credit 
societies have often been able to borrow, for three or four 
per cent, as much money as was needed. These facts are well 
known. But the American farmer is too much of an indi- 
vidualist to combine with others. He is leading too isolated 
a life. The rural social center may well serve as the basis 
on which to build up such a system of cooperation. It will 
overcome the suspicion and make the farmers better ac- 
quainted. It furnishes the opportunity for talking up and 
launching the movement. 

The social center would appear from this study to be 
crucial to the larger education of the farmer and his wife, to 
breaking the isolation of the farm and providing it with the 
needed recreation and social life, and to the organization of 
the farm community for various cooperative business and 
civic enterprises. All of these things are just now fundamen- 
tal to the welfare of the country, and all the organizations 
that are interested in promoting the welfare of the country 
may well combine in promoting the social center. 



INDEX 



Absentee farmers, 169 

Adolescent girl, 107 

Adventure, xiv, 87, 187 ; love of boy 
for, xiv, XV ; love of girl for, 107 

Aged, recreation for, 178 

Agricultural colleges, winter course 
in, 176; work of, 228; extension 
lectures at, 232 

Agricultural extension, 231 

Alumnae association of a district 
school, 164 

Angell, Emmett D., 55 

Athletic slide, 46 

Athletics, equipment for, 47 ; sup- 
plies for, 52 ; badge test in, 65 ; 
interschool, 66 

Authors, 13 

Automobiling, 120 

Baden-Powell, General, 141 
Bailey, Liberty H., 57, 182, 241 
Bait casting, 170 
Bancroft, Jessie, 55 
Baseball, 36, 48, 56, 1S3, 1S8, 224 
Basket ball, 64 
Basket-ball court, 51 
Bats, baseball, 52, 224 
Beard, Dan, 142 
Beautifying the dooryard, 17 
Beauty, love of, xvi, 70, 1 15, 169, 174 
Better-farming association, 237 
Bird houses, 30 

Birds, collecting eggs of, 30 ; knowl- 
edge of, 30 
Boise, the Reverend Anton, 220 
Boy Scouts, 141 
Boys' clubs, industrial, 78 
Building playhouses, 21, 31 
Butterfield, Keynon, 186, 241, 257 

Camp Fire Girls, 134 
Camping, 125, 148 
Canning clubs, 78, 113 
Carriage, single, 118 



Carver, Professor Thomas N., 241 

Chautauquas, 235 

Checkers, 13 

Chickens, raising of, 24 

Children, parents should play with, 
13, 160; chief source of recrea- 
tion to parents, 160, 178 

Children's room, 13 

Christmas, 15 

Church, recreation through, 216 

Circus, children should attend, 31 

Civic debate, with topics, 38 

Clergyman, country, 188, 216 

Climbing trees, 28 

Clothing, girls', unsuitable, 106 

Clubs, boys' and girls' industrial, 78; 
cooking, 83, 113; social, 164 

Coasting, 122 

Contests, athletic, 66, 95 

Coon, trapping for, 26 

Cooperation, through social center, 
258; in Denmark, 259; needed 
here, 259 

Corn roast, 123 

Cost, of games for the home, 13; 
of equipment for the yard, 22 ; 
of equipment for the rural school, 
52; of community recreation, 193; 
of the social center, 209 

Countiy pastors, 216 

Country playgrounds, 180 

County secretaries, Y.M.C.A., 92, 
190; Y.W.C.A., 133, 190; of agri- 
culture, 190 

County Superintendent of Schools, 

93 
Courage, training in, 28 

Court, for tennis, 21 ; for volley ball, 

49 
Courting, 8, 117, i iS 
Credit, agricultural, 259 
Croquet, 21, 64, iii 
Croquet sets, 50 
Cure of isolation, 57, 243 



261 



262 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



Dairies, cooperative, 157 

Dancing, 131, 245 

Danger, need of, 28 

Democracy and the social center, 

197 
Denmark, example of, 176, 230, 

259 

Diamond, for baseball, 48 ; for in- 
door baseball, 60 

Director of rural recreation, 191 

Domestic science, 79, 109, 113, 159, 
228, 229, 230 

Dominoes, 1,3 

Dooryard, beautifying of, 17 

Dooryard play, 17 

Dramatic play, 31 

Dress for girls, 106 

Drifting down a river, 119 

Driving, i iS 

Educational extension through the 

rural social center, 225 
Eggs, birds', 30 
Entertainments, to raise money, 52 ; 

at social center, 212, 213 
Equipment, for the play at home, 

13; in the dooryard, 18; at the 

rural school, 42 ; in the township 

park, 1 82 
Excursions, school, 69 
Exhibits, school, 72 
Expense, of school playground, how 

met, 52 ; of social center, 209 
Experiences for a country boy, 25 
Extension classes in agriculture, 226 
Extension lectures, 231 

Fairy tales, 1 1 

Fairs, county school, in Virginia, 72; 

district-school, 77 ; county, 185 
Family life, 36, 160, 177 
Far Hills, New Jersey, 184 
Farmers' institutes, 235 
Farming, changed nature of, xiv, 

174; scientific, advantages of, 175 
Federation, of churches, 221 ; for 

rural progress, 193 
Fences, at the home, 17 ; at school, 

39 

Festivals, play, 88 

Financing, of school playground, 

52 ; of social center, 209 
Fireside cheer, 8 
Fishing, 3, 25 



Folk dancing, 245 
Football, 36, 48, 56 
Fourth of July, 32 

Game, protection and hunting of, 26 

Games, for the home, 13; for the 

little children, 55 ; for the older 

children, 56; for the community, 

94 
Gentlemen farmers, 228 
Germany, 69, 90, 115 
Girls, disadvantages of dress, 65 ; 

restricted experience, 104; lack 

of play spirit, 106; disadvantages 

of training, 109 
Gossip, 223 
Grange, the, 256 
Grounds, of rural school, 36 ; of 

township park, 182 
Gulick, Dr. and Mrs. Luther, 134 
Gymnasiums. 211, 245 

Haggard, Rider, 241 

Hay rides, 124 

Hayward, the Reverend E. C., 217 

Hesperia Movement, 235 

Hikes, of Boy Scouts, 148 

Hofer, Mari H., 55 

Holiday, or half holiday, for the 
country, xvi, 57, 139, 174 

llollister, the Reverend Frederick 
M., 183 

Home, as a social center, 6 ; advan- 
tages of the farm, 3, 177; con- 
veniences for the, 156 

Home playground, 17 

Horizontal bar, 47 

Hunting, 3, 25 

Husking bees, xiii 

Ideals, of the home, 6; of the farmer, 

88; of the social center, 199 
Imagination, appeal of the primeval, 

-S 
Immorality, in the country, 112, 118, 

130, 131, 245 
Improving grounds, of the rural 

school, 36 ; of the township park, 

182 
Indians, xiii, 25 

Individualist, the farmer an, xv 
Indoor baseball, 48, 60, 113 
Industrial clubs, boys' and girls', 78 
Isolation, means of overcoming, 243 



INDEX 



263 



Jacob and Rachel, 55 
Johnson, G. A., 55 
Jumping pit, 47 

Kern, O. J., 42 

Kirk, President John R., 213 

Landlordism, 169 

Leadership, great need of the coun- 
try for, 87, 112, 171, 1 87 

League for Rural Progress, 193 

Lectures, extension, at rural social 
centers, 231 

Leisure, 87 

Leland, Arthur, 45 

Libraries, 162, 239 

Life, to be enjoyed, xiv, 87, 88, 172 

Life-saving, 145 

Long ball, or long town, 62 

Love of animals, 174 

Love of Nature, 174; how culti- 
vated, 69 ; essential for country 
life, 115, 169 

Machinery, for the farm, 176; for 

the home, 156 
McNutt, Reverend Matthew B., 219 
Magazines for home, 11, 162 
Methods of organizing social centers, 

199 
Minister, country, 216 
Minnesota, state of, 199 
Morality, social, I oS, 118,130,131,245 
Moving pictures, 247 
Music, for the home, 9; for the 

church, 218 

Nature study, by school excursions, 
69; by Camp Fire Girls, 134 ; by 
Boy Scouts, 142 

New games, 56 

New York City, lectures in, 232 

Nielson, Miss Minnie, 236 

Normal school, and pageant, 102; 
and social center, 207 

North Stonington, Connecticut, 183 

Oath, scout, 146 

Ofificials needed at contests, 96 

Oklahoma, the A. and M. College 

of, 79, 84 
Opportunity for philanthropist, 193 
Organization, of social centers, 199 ; 

rural lack of, 255 



Organizers, of play in the home, 6 ; 

of rural recreation, 187 ; of the 

social center, 199 
Oyster suppers, 223 

Paddling, 1 19 

Pageant, rural, 99 

Parents' association, 204 

Parker, Grace E., 138 

Parks, township, or community, 182 

Pastor, rural church without, 222 

Patriotism, 145 

Patrol, scout, 146 

Pets, 23 

Picnic groves, 36, 1S2 

Picnics, 70, 123 

Plainfield, 111., 218 

Play, lack of appreciation of. xvi, 7, 

87; need of, for farm girls, iic; 

need of, for farmer's wife, 154; 

need of, for farmer, 172 
Play festival, 88 
Play room, 13 

Playground baseball, 60, 113 
Playgrounds of rural schools, 36 
Playhouse, tent for, 20; in a tree, 

21 ; built by children, 21 
Playing games, 13 
Playtime, for primary children, 68 ; 

for the school, 69; for the com- 
munity, xiv, 57, 174 
Pleasure resorts, 180, 181 
Plunket, Sir Horace, 241 
Pom Pom Pull Away, 55, 95 
Popularity of Boy Scouts, 147 
Potato race, 90 
Power, electrical, 156 
Principal of the consolidated school, 

192 
Prisoner's Base, 55 
Private house as a social center, 

214 
Program, of the home, 6; for the 

year, 121; of extension lectures, 

233 ; of civic debates, 239 ; of the 

social center, 254 
Puberty and temptations, 108 
Public School Athletic League, 65 

Quoits, 21 

Races, 67, 96 
Rackets, tennis, 50 
Rats, killing, 27 



>64 



PLAY AND RECREATION 



Reading, lo, 162 

Recess time, 54, 68 

Recreation for the country girl, 
104 

Recreation association, 203 

Recreation calendar, 121 

Recreation centers, 200 

Recreation district, 192 

Rent, 170 

Resuscitation, 28 

Riding horseback, 117 

Robbing nests, of bumblebees, 29 ; 
of birds, 30 

Romance, xv ; needed, 87, 107, 108, 
1S7 

Roosevelt and the Rural Life Com- 
mission, 89 

Rotation of crops, 175 

Rowing, 1 19 

Running, 47, 96 

Running track, 47 

Rural life Commission, 4, 89 

Rural Life Movement, 89, 109, 167 

Safe and sane Fourth, 32 

Sand bin, 18, 43 

Santa Claus, 15 

School, rural, consolidated, 38 ; 
fences, 39; trees, 40; play equip- 
ment, 42 ; games, 53 ; curriculum 
unsatisfactory, 109 

School training unsatisfactory, 109 

School-improvement associations, 
205 

Schoolhouses, of the consolidated 
schools, 38, 192, 193, 254; model, 
213 

Scientific farming, 175 

Scout masters, 150 

Scudder, President Myron, 54, 91 

Secretary, agricultural, 190; County 
Y.M.C.A.,190; County Y.W.C. A., 
190 

Seton, Thompson, 142 

Sewing contest, 83, 114 

Sex temptations, 112, 118, 130, 245 

Shooting, 26, 27 

Shotgun, 26 

Shrubbery, to be avoided at the 
school, 41 

Singing, 246 

Size of farms, 3 

Skunks, shooting or trapping, 27 

Sleighing, 122 



Slide, for the home, 19; for the 

school, 46 
Sociables, 224 
Social center, 197 
Social clubs, 113, 134, 141, 164, 191, 

221 
Social morality, 108, 118, 130, 131, 

245 
Social-center association, 202 
Sparrows, 27 

Spelling match, xiv, 71, 254 
Standard athletic test, 65 
State Fair School, 83, 84 
State Normal School, 207 
State university, 206 
Stock, caring for, 105, 174 
Stock judging, 82 
Story-telling, 10 
Street railroad park, 173 
Suckers, spearing, 26 
Sugar party, 122 
Suicide, race, xvi, 3 
Summer Chautauquas, 235 
Superintendent of schools, 189 
Supplies, athletic, 52 
Surveys, 225 
Swimming, 28 
Swings, for the home, 20 ; for the 

school, 44 

Tag, 55 

Tamalpais Center, California, 212 

Teachers, rural, 53 ; pay, 35 ; secur- 
ing equipment, 52 ; organizers of 
games, 53 ; organizers of com- 
munity recreation, 94, 188 

Teachers' institutes and the teach- 
ing of play, 94 

Teaching of games, 56 

Team games, 56, 58, 60, 62, 63, 64 

Temptations, 108, 118, 130, 131, 
171, 245 

Tenancy, increase of, 169 

Tennis, 21, 64, in 

Tent, as playhouse, 20 ; for camp- 
ing, 125 

Tether-ball, 22, 49 

Three Deep, 55 

Township, basis of recreational 
organization, 192 

Township park, 182 

Toys, 1 1 

Trees, for the yard of house, 17 ; to 
climb, 28 ; for school yard, 40 



INDEX 



i6s 



Trips, walking, 69; horseback, 117; 
canoe, 119 ; auto, 120 

University of Wisconsin, 199, 206 

Vacations for farm women, 163 

Value of play, xvi, 7, 8, 87 

Vice in the country, 108, 118, 130, 

Village, 188 ; dangers of life in, 152 ; 

Scouts in, 152 ; play in, 183 
Vines, for buildings, 37 ; for school 

fences, 39 
Visiting, 14 
Vocal music, 246 
Volleyball, 22, 58, 112 

Ward, Professor J. Edward, 199 
Washing, clothes, 140, 157; dishes, 
159 



Water, for the home, 156; for the 

school, 214 
West, James R., 153, 224 
Wife, farm, 154 
Wilson, Woodrow, on social center, 

199 
Windmill for the home, i 56 
Winnebago County, 111., 39, 42 
Winship, Dr. A. E., v 
Winter sports, 70 
Winter time for play, 87, 244 
Wisconsin, state of, 199 
Women, farm, long hours, etc. of, 

154 
Woodchucks, shooting, 27 
Work, of boys, 105 ; of girls, 105 

Young Men's Christian Association, 
county work of, 92 

Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion, county work of, 133 



ANNOUNCEMENTS 



THE DRAMATIC METHOD OF 
TEACHING 

By Harriet Finlay-Johnson 



l2mo, cloth, 109 pages, illustrated, $1.00 



Miss Johnson's name is already widely known to educators 
both here and in England for the remarkable success which she 
achieved with her highly original methods. In " The Dramatic 
Method of Teaching " she tells the fascinating story of her 
experiences as head mistress of the Sompting School in Sussex, 
where she put into practice her theories of education. 

Under her guidance, lessons in history, literature, geography, 
and arithmetic became full of imagination and action. Each 
study furnished material for dramatization, the children not 
only choosing the subject and making the costumes and prop- 
erties but gathering the necessary information and writing or 
improvising the play. Miss Johnson thus succeeded in enlisting 
genuine interest in every branch of study, and this book reveals 
many secrets of her success in directing instead of suppressing 
the natural activities of childhood. 

Whether or not American teachers follow in detail dramatic 
methods of teaching, they will find this book full of interest 
and suggestion. The twenty-three full-page illustrations, from 
photographs of a variety of children's plays, are an attractive 
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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION is a handbook for teachers who 
think. It is a plain and practical account of the life of 
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are ever at work among pupils of all ages. It is not based 
upon mere ideals or philosophical abstractions but upon 
countless observations of schools of various kinds from the 
kindergarten up to the college grades. It is not the child 
as a separate individual, but children as they are actually 
found in classes and groups in and out of the school, which 
form the principal subject of discussion. The book is full 
of the actual activities of living children, and its aim is to 
show how these can be made more productive, more ethical, 
and more happy and spontaneous, — not sacrificing, but 
promoting and intensifying thereby, the scholarship and the 
truest discipline of the school. 

Mr. Colin A. Scott's careful study of Social Education leaves 
its readers duly impressed with the supreme and overwhelming 
importance of understanding the child at every step of his career, 
of making his citizenship date from his school days, of molding 
him, through the princijjle of organization, into an active and intel- 
ligent member of the state. The book is sincere, earnest, ardent. 
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SWEDISH SONG GAMES 

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8vo, cloth, 95 pages, illustrated, 75 cents 

The song games and folk dances here presented have for some years 
been popular in Sweden, where they are played by children of all ages, 
a few of them even by high-school pupils and older people. When, 
under Miss Kohler's training, some of these games were taught in New 
York City in 1910, they were in great demand for recess play and for 
festivals. 

So explicit are the directions that a teacher should be able to use the 
book with any group of children. Its possibilities for the playground 
and the home are obvious. The music has the lilt of all folk songs, and 
the words will be intelligible to even the youngest players. This is the 
only collection in English of Swedish song games. 



EDUCATION BY PLAYS AND GAMES 

By George E. Johnson, Superintendent of Playgrounds, Recreation Parks, 
and Vacation Schools, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

l2mo, cloth, 234 pages, illustrated, 90 cents 

No educator is better fitted to write a book on play than Superin- 
tendent Johnson, who has made a special study of the subject for many 
years and whose work in the schools and recreation grounds has given 
him a splendid equipment of practical experience. In this volume he 
presents a curriculum of games carefully graded for children of all ages 
through the middle teens and analyzes each game to show the chief 
mental and physical activities developed by it. He gives a general 
discussion, also, of the meaning of play, of its relation to work, and of 
the history of its application to education. 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

By Superintendent George E. Johnson 

l2mo, cloth, 33 pages, illustrated, 25 cents 

This book tells the elementary-school teacher just what games to 
play at recess and just what apparatus to provide. It is a real answer 
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AMONG COUNTRY SCHOOLS 

By O. J. KERN 

Superintendent of Schools, Winnebago County, Illinois 

l2mo, cloth, 366 pages, illustrated, ^1.25 



AN OUTLINE OF QUESTIONS FOR KERN'S AMONG 
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THE author's endeavor in preparing this work has 
Ueen to create a new ideal in the training of the 
country child. 

The book is the result of seven years of very earnest 
thought and hard work in an endeavor to secure for the 
country child his rights so far as an educational opportunity 
is concerned. The country school should have that freedom 
which country life affords. This book has but little to say 
about the mechanics of school management. 

In the training of children and the development of char- 
acter no greater opportunity can be offered than that now 
presented to the teacher in the country school. The author 
hopes that this book will prove suggestive to the teacher and 
school officer who are striving for the spiritualization of 
country life through the medium of the school. He believes 
that a careful reading of its pages will show a practical way 
of interesting the "farm child through farm topics." 

Some of the chapter titles, indicating the suggestions given 
in this distinctly novel treatise, are : 

THE RIGHTS OF THE COUNTRY CHILD 

OUTDOOR ART — BEAUTIFYING SCHOOL GROUNDS 

INDOOR ART AND DECORATION 

A FARMER BOY'S EXPERIMENT CLUB 

THE COUNTRY SCHOOL AND THE FARMERS' INSTITUTE 



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